Introduction to today's journey
Today's journey takes me out of Orlando heading eastward to Cape Canaveral, where I explore the Kennedy Space Center museum. There are no launches today so I am fortunate enough to go on a secure bus tour to the vehicle assembly and launch areas at the cape, ending at another museum containing the Saturn V rocket. From the Kennedy Space Center I return to Orlando and quickly explore it before catching a train northwards towards Washington D.C.
Today's Journey
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Heading eastwards out of Orlando towards Pine Island and Cape Canaveral in the early morning. |
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Reaching the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. |
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The space shuttle Atlantis on display in the museum having retired after 33 missions between 1985 and 2011. The other space shuttles are in display in other museums around the country. |
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From the museum we head out on a bus tour around the launch pads as there are no launches for a while. We are following beside the road where the rockets are taken out to the pads from the enormous vehicle assembly building with the launch control tower to its left. Currently an Orion exploration spacecraft capable of reaching the moon and Mars is near completion ready for testing. |
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Passing the main launch pad where most of NASA's rockets launch from. Nearby is the SpaceX launch pad. |
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There is another museum building near the launch pads. Inside are the original Mission Control consoles from the Apollo program in the 1960s and 1970s. It was one of the world's most powerful supercomputers at the time, but has a tiny fraction of the computing power than a modern smart phone. |
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The command module of the Apollo 14 spaceship rockets which successfully landed on the moon and returned its astronauts to Earth. |
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Part of the Saturn V rocket used in the 1960s and 1970s. |
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A NASA plane with the fuel tanks used on the space shuttles in the background. |
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Returning to Orlando in the early evening to catch an overnight train to Washington D.C. |
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