KENNEDY SPACE CENTER
KENNEDY SPACE CENTER |
|
| Home > Travel > USA > Florida > Kennedy Space Center | ||||
 Assembly building (67 kb) |
On the eastcoast of Florida is Kennedy Space Center, where rockets and space shuttles are launched. It is possible to see the Space Center - you are driven around in busses. Besides there are different exhibitions and IMAX-movies at the Visitors Complex. On the visit you see the LC39 (Launch Complex) Observation Gantry, where the launches are controlled. 3 miles away is the LC39 itself where the Space Shuttles are launched. You also see the Apollo/Saturn V Center, where you can see a real Saturn V rocket and the Apollo spaceship - these are the ones used for the expeditions to the Moon. The height of the Saturn V 110 m including the Apollo spaceship. |  Saturn V rocket (89 kb) |
||
 LC 39 (Launch Complex 39) (68 kb) |
The name Kennedy Space Center confuses a lot of people because it has also been called Cape Carnaveral - the explanation I have read, is that the first launches were from Cape Carnaveral Air Station. When president Kennedy promised that the Moon would be reached before the end of the 1960's, the Kennedy Space Center next to Cape Carnaveral. To make it more confusing, only the launches are controlled from Kennedy Space Center. A few moments after "lift-off" the control and communication is switched over to Houston, Texas (therefore Tom Hanks says "Houston, we have a problem" in the movie "Apollo 13").
The visit at Kennedy Space Center is very exiting - I can remember the launches from when I was a child - I thought it was fascinating to travel into space - and suddenly many years later I'm standing next to a real Saturn rocket. |
 Saturn V rocket (101 kb) |
||
 Gemini spaceship in the top of a Titan rocket in "Rocket Garden" (36 kb) |
It is possible to see a launch if you happen to be in the area when the launch take place - unfortunatly there were no launches the two times I visited Kennedy Space Center, but perhaps the next time.... Information about coming launches can be found on NASA's homepage.
Besides beeing where Space Shuttles are launched, the Kennedy Space Center is also a refugee for wildlife. The Space Center lays in a kind of swamp area, and there a rich possibilities to see alligators, eagles and other kind of wildlife. |
|||
 Apollo / Saturn V Center - control center (220 kb) |
||||
Rocket Garden | ||||
 Gemini spaceship in the top of a Titan II rocket (75 kb) |
I Rocket Garden at the Visitor Center is some of the older and smaller spaceships and rocket on display. |  Mercury spaceship on top of a Redstone rocket (75 kb) |
||
