The tour today of the
Kennedy Space Center
was the highlight of our trip.
NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida
has long served as America's spaceport,
hosting all of the federal government's manned spaceflights since the late 1960s.
Information on this blog taken from
This is a map of the area we stayed during our vacation.
who famously declared in 1961 that the United States would put an astronaut on the moon,
and bring that person safely back to Earth, before the end of the decade.
which ultimately succeeded when Neil Armstrong and his two Apollo 11 crewmates
splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on July 24, 1969.
Apollo 11 launched from KSC, as did all subsequent flights in the Apollo program,
and every one of the space shuttle's 135 missions.
Small quarters.
Views overlooking Cape Canaveral.
The cape has been a center of U.S. launch activity since 1949, when President Harry Truman established the Joint Long-Range Proving Ground — currently known as the Eastern Range or "the Range" — there to test missiles.
The next big push is to go to Mars.
We relived the launch of the first crewed NASA mission to orbit the moon in 1968 aboard the massive Saturn V rocket at the Firing Room Theater.
We experienced the countdown for Apollo 8 facing the actual consoles used during the Apollo launches as we saw and felt the powerful Saturn V moon rocket
lift off from the launch pad and blast into space.
https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/explore-attractions/race-to-the-moon/apollo-8-and-the-firing-room
Actual consoles used for Apollo 8
Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins blasted off for the moon from KSC on July 16, 1969. Other moonwalkers followed in their footsteps, until the last Apollo flight in December 1972.
Touching a Moon Rock.
Atlantis flew the shuttle program's last-ever mission,
touching down for good on July 21, 2011.
Doug and I with astronaut Nicole Stott.
Back to our resort after a long day at the Space Center.
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