I didn’t check, but I’m pretty sure Alan Shepard was in there.
We took our sweet time gearing up to leave Anastasia on Thursday. In fact, after we hitched up we headed over to the beach and hung out for another couple hours. Then we drove just south of Cape Canaveral and Kennedy Space Center, which – we now know – are two different places. Canaveral is the Air Force’s rocket launching site and Kennedy is NASA’s. We parked for the night (at Wal-Mart) and headed over to Kennedy on Friday.
Shuttle Discovery on LC-39A (launch pad) prepping for launch next Tuesday.
I wasn’t expecting to be wow’ed, but I was. What struck me was the immensity of the space program now and, really, from the beginning. There’s the immense complexity: so many things have to work so precisely and simply cannot fail. The massive crawler that totes the shuttle with its fuel tanks and portable launch pad (18 million pounds altogether) moves slowly, but can make adjustments with an eighth of an inch of accuracy. The two huge cranes inside the Vehicle Assembly Building are accurate to 1/64″ in all horizontal directions and 1/50,000″ vertically! Whoa. That building is also the third largest, by volume, in the world.
For the shuttle/rocket assembly to exit, only the lowest 3 door panels must raise.
We caught a glimpse of the shuttle on the launch pad before heading over to the Apollo/Saturn V Center. There we watched a cool movie that gets you all pumped up about the early space program. Elise said she wanted to cry when they talked about the Apollo 1 tragedy. Me too. The most impressive aspect of the space program is the incredible collaboration and sacrifice of thousands of people to make it happen. Just amazing.
The Stage 1 engines for the Saturn V rocket. Kinda big.
We left in the afternoon and headed to the West Palm Beach area to visit Dana Caplan. She is Caren’s sister. Caren and Danine’s brother Chris got married at the beginning of our adventure. Check the archives if you’re lost. Dana is really good with kids and she and Elise hit it off at the wedding. She also has horses. This means Elise worships her like unto a god. We’ll fill you on our day of riding, swimming, and craft making later.
We drove through a few nasty storms on our trips south. Hopefully things’ll clear up by the time we’re in the Keys!
Yikes.
October 20, 2007 at 7:15 pm
Bobby, I was sure that you were going to write that Elise had decided to become an astronaut. Maybe it is just the lure of Dana and her horses that is keeping her grounded! Love, Mary Lou
October 21, 2007 at 3:05 am
Hey Guys!
I’m jealous of your Charleston, S.C., Savannah jaunts! Great, great pictures, as always.
Shawn