the education of henry

Kennedy Space Center

2020-03-11

Wednesday morning we packed up the car and headed to Kennedy Space Center!

The clock that counted down all the launches.

Look who was wandering around the entrance.

This thing looks familiar....

The rocket garden.

This is one of the Saturn V engines - there would be five of these on the rocket.

This is a Saturn 1B.

This is Tom - he drove the tour bus. He has watched the launch of every manned mission since Apollo 12, including all 135 Shuttle launches, in person.

This is the vehicle assembly building.

This is the reassmebled control room for the Apollo missions.

These are the Saturn V engines attached to the rocket.

The Saturn V is so big you can't even get a picture of the whole thing.

Checking out the interactive displays.

The actual walkway used by the Apollo astronauts to get into the Saturn V.

Mommy walked on it, too.

A LEGO astronaut.

I touched a piece of the Moon! (Don't worry - we used hand sanitizer after we all touched the moon rock.)

On the bus - we saw some big gators and some baby gators on the ride.

The boosters and fuel tank outside the Space Shuttle Atlantis building.

Waiting to get in to see Atlantis.

Here it is!

Playing in a mock-up of the shuttle cabin.

So many buttons and switches....

And when we were done playing, we went down a slide!

Checking out the space toilet.

The coolest thing in the Atlantis building, other than the shuttle itself, was the simulated launch ride - we weren't allowed to take pictures in there, but it was awesome!

When we were done, we went back out to look around at some of the other exhibits and buildings.

The Mars Rover for the manned mission - I bought a remote control toy of this one.

Versions of some of the rovers already on Mars.

And I got to meet a real astronaut! Her name is Wendy Lawrence, and she went on four missions and spent 51 days in space!

She autographed my NASA shirt.

We left Kennedy Space Center about 4:00 and then drove to Bob's house. It took a lot longer to do the drive than we thought - but it was good to get somewhere nice and see a familiar, friendly face when we arrived.