- #Kennedy space center orlando florida how to#
- #Kennedy space center orlando florida zip#
- #Kennedy space center orlando florida windows#
(You can bring your own food in small, soft-sided coolers.) There is nowhere else to eat within a 15-minute drive, and on-site food options are horrendous ($8–$10 a plate)-hamburgers taste like they were surplus from the Apollo program.
#Kennedy space center orlando florida how to#
The entire state-of-the-art, hyper-engaging space shuttle section can easily consume 2 hours.ĭaunted? You can prepare by downloading KSC’s free app, which helps you prioritize how to spend your time here with maps and attraction descriptions. You can also try the $60-million Shuttle Launch Experience, in which 44-person motion-simulator pods mimic an 8-minute launch with surprising (but not nauseating) clarity, and Heroes & Legends, which pays tribute to the 100-odd explorers in the Astronaut Hall of Fame.
#Kennedy space center orlando florida windows#
Alongside favorite mementos provided by 11 of the 14 families of their crews, you’ll find respectful displays of a section of the hull of the Challenger, lost in 1986, and a slab of cockpit windows of the Columbia (lost in 2003), still encrusted with grass and mud from where it fell to Earth. Don’t miss the commemorative Forever Remembered. Hanging 26 feet off the ground at an angle of 43.21 degrees (like the numbers in a launch countdown), it’s still covered with space dust, and it now tips a wing at everyone who comes to learn about it on the many interactive displays that surround it.
Without giving too much away, the way in which it’s revealed to you is probably the most spine-tingling moment you’ll experience in all of your Orlando visit.
There’s a cafeteria here, and look around for retired engineers and astronauts who are often on hand to answer questions.Īfter that, hasten back via the bus to the Visitor Complex for the grand finale: The $100-million home of the space shuttle Atlantis. The presentation in the Lunar Theatre, which recounts the big touchdown, is well produced and even includes a video appearance by the late, reclusive Neil Armstrong. Don’t overlook the chance to reach into a case to touch a small moon rock, which looks like polished metal. long, or the equivalent of 30 stories)-but the new SLS rockets are even bigger. The adjoining hangar contains a Saturn V rocket, which is larger than you can imagine (363 ft. The main bus stop, the Apollo/Saturn V Center, is themed “Race to the Moon” and begins with a mandatory 5-minute film and then a full-scale mock-up of the “firing room” in the throes of commanding Apollo 8’s launch, in all its window-rattling, fire-lit drama-to skip that 30-minute show and get to the good stuff, pass through. It’s just one story tall, but it’s a doozy: The Statue of Liberty could fit through those doors with 200 feet left over. You’ll buzz past eagles’ nests, alligator-rich canals, pads now leased by private space-mission contractors SpaceX and Boeing, and the confoundingly titanic Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB, where the shuttle-which NASA folk call “the orbiter”-was readied. You’ll see the launch sites used by the shuttle and by the Apollo moon shots, and you’ll receive an intelligent explanation of the preparation that went into each shuttle launch. Combined with the nature reserve around it, the area (which guides tell visitors is one-fifth the size of Rhode Island and is home to 16 bald eagle nests) is huge but you’ll be making one stop not too far away.
#Kennedy space center orlando florida zip#
On that tour, coaches with live on-board narration zip you around NASA’s tightly secured compound. Be warned that the last buses don’t leave you enough time to browse. Unless there’s an Astronaut Encounter going on-that’s an hour-long presentation in which an actual astronaut talks about his or her experience and answers questions-proceed instantly to the can’t-miss Behind the Gates bus tour, which leaves every 15 minutes until about 2:15pm, and takes most people around 3 hours. At the main Visitor Complex, many people are waylaid by the retired rockets, IMAX films, and simulators, but that’s not the best stuff-do them at the end of the day if you have time. For optimal touring, you really should drive yourself and start at opening time. KSC is on the Space Coast about an hour east of Orlando, and it’s worth the trip.
0 kommentar(er)
