Kennedy Space Center Visit

[Stealhead]

This will have some pics sometime tomorrow I'm too lazy to upload them to night.

I went with my wife an daughter to Kennedy Space Center today for my birthday.Needles to say very cool little trip only a 2 hour drive from the house.I have been before but over 20 years ago twice in the late 80's to witness Shuttle launches (both of which got canceled that day). I also wen once in the early 90's to see the exhibits and go on one of the tours.

I heard from a friend that recently they built a museum for the Atlantis (June 0f 2013 I think) and about 4 or 5 years ago made they made a huge complex for a Saturn V that was left over from Apollo.They decided to fully restore it and put on on display inside a huge building along with tons of other displays related to Apollo program.

The way NASA does it is you must buy a ticket to the park which has a good bit of things on display including the brand new Atlantis complex.Then you can buy one of three tours via bus (they make stops) of different sections of the complex then each tour ends at the Saturn V complex.

The one we went on goes to the Vehicle Assembly Building(VAB). The VAB at one time was the largest building in the world by volume and it still has the largest doors on earth.This is where they assembled the Saturn rockets and later the Shuttles and the SLS will be assembled there as well.

Let me tell you walking into this structure will pretty much blow your mind because of what was assembled there but also the engineering that is in the structure itself.when you step inside and look up you can see clear to the ceiling about 526 ft above your head.

It is hard to describe its layout without seeing it so I'll just post some pictures of it later.But basically it has two huge sets of doors on the north and south end and four smaller(though still massive) sets of doors on the east and west ends.The vehicle(or very large object) would come in via the north and south doors and they do all the fine tune assembly in one of the smaller bays(large enough to fit a Saturn v) including being placed on top of one of the huge crawlers.then they drive it out the small bay doors.


There are four huge cranes inside the largest can handle 320,000 tons() these cranes are so precise you could place and egg under one and have it rest gently on top of the egg and not crack it.The orbiter portion of the shuttle was placed in a special jig when they needed to set it vertical during this process once they had slowly moved it 90 deg they le it sit for at least four hours to make 100% certain that it had stopped swaying before they did anything else.

Another cool thing about the side bays was they had been designed for much smaller Saturn V sections but the Orbiter had too large of a wing span So they have had to lift it 80ft in the air where the gaps for the cranes are just large enough pull it up and then through and then lower it down into the bay.

They never used the west facing bays for final assembly because doing so would mean extra turns for the crawler to get to its special road way instead they use them mainly for storage and smaller mock ups.At the time they had some mock ups of the new Orion mulch-purpose crew vehicle.I mean real engineering mock ups in one of the side bays they had more but it was behind opaque plastic and we where not allowed back there.They had several displays showing the assembly stages of Saturn V and the Shuttle to give you an idea what it looks like.

They also had a display of the various heat tiles and "blankets" which I'm sure they put there after the Columbia loss.The "blankets" which are newer are used on the upper surfaces early on the orbiters had solid tiles on the surface on at the bottom they found during the shuttle program that the "blankets" worked better than tiles did for upper surfaces.These are sown by hand in another facility across the road.All of the tiles and blankets are silica based with varying forms of connection and construction.

If you have ever seen photos of the VAB on the south facing side there is an American flag and the NASA emblem.On that flag the stars are six feet tall and the blue area is that same size as an NBA basketball court I'll post a picture of the flag to give you an idea just how massive this building is.

The Saturn/Apollo complex is just as awesome the rocket is on display horizontally and is in three sections.The pictures do not do this thing justice honestly they did a very good job with the restoration it looks like in time warped from 1970.In a few areas it is cut away to show what the fuel tank/stowage bay looks like.they also had a lunar rover and a section of Skylab.They also have the Apollo 14 capsule on display.

In another room they had several prototype space suits for the Apollo program along with some personal effects of Guss Grissom and Roger Chaffe two of the three astronauts that died in Apollo 1 Grissom's Congressional Space Medal of Honor and a watch that Chaffe almost always wore.

The Atlantis complex is very impressive you watch two short films about the shuttle during the last one you stand in special theater when the film is over the screens lift up and you actually see the Atlantis through the screen.It was very nice it actually kind of takes your breath away the way they do it and some people kind of stood there for a few seconds just staring.They have Atlantis suspended as if she is still in orbit and the bays are open and the robotic arm is extended reaching towards the Hubble telescope (or a very well done mock up).

You can not go inside the Atlantis (which I like actually) but you can stand very close to her.They just left her as she looked on the last mission so the tiles are scorched and all but it looks very awesome.I have worked on and around aircraft for years but this was still something to see a ship just as she looked after a space mission and she is no mock up she is real the last Orbiter to fly in space.It is really something to see up close and so well displayed.Again photos just do not do her justice.