On our Tuesday in Orlando, some of us went to Kennedy Space Center. Dean's parents and sister, who had all been before, decided they wanted a day off so they didn't come, so the rest of us trekked off to the east and came to the land of the big rockets.
My desire to come here was selfish as well as for fun--part of the novel I'm writing takes place at Kennedy and in the surrounding area, so since we were going to be so close anyway, I wanted to see the place and get a feel for the area. I also wanted to look around the surrounding town, since my protagonist spends a good deal of time there. It was very helpful, and I'm grateful that everybody else wanted to go.
This is the Vehicle Assembly Building, the largest one-story building in the world. This is where they put the rockets together in preparation for launch.
I don't have as many photos of this day--or rather, most of my photos are of things and the informational signs so I could peruse them later. I was in research mode, not so much tourist mode.
Us beneath the giant Saturn V rockets that propelled the Apollo astronauts into orbit
Liam thought the best part about Kennedy was learning to push their strollers
Me getting into the Astronaut Van
Fun fact: the ladder on this Lunar Module would break if used in Earth gravity--that's how important it was to cut as much weight as possible. (This one would have been on Apollo 15, but they replaced it when they decided they needed one big enough to take the lunar rover)
Who can resist a big ball?
Teaching my boys how to fly
The rocket garden
Taking my majestic walk across the catwalk to my spaceship
Dean and I, seeing what it's like to get strapped in and ready for launch
You know, I think the astronauts have head rests
They had an awesome playground for junior astronauts.
The boys loved it
We wished we had more time to look around the facilities, but we all took this day to be somewhat of an off day, so we didn't get started until really late and then had to get out because it was closing time. But still, we had fun and I learned a lot for my novel.
Robin LOVES rockets now. He managed to find a kiddie nonfiction book about the space shuttle at the library, and we read that a lot before we had to return it. We also usually give Robin a new matchbox airplane on plane rides, so he has a new toy to keep him busy, and the one we gave him on our trip home was a space shuttle. He likes to count down from 5 to blast off, and is just generally enthralled with the idea. Hee hee!
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