From the campground. That's the top of turn 3 at Daytona right there beyond those two motorhomes.
The vehicle assembly building at KSC
That's the "A" pad, and the tracks that they move the shuttle out there on
You can see the tracks more clearly here
One of the only three remaining Mercury mission rockets. It's absolutely positively enormous.
What autocross class would this be in?
A little re-enactment theater. A moving show, I liked it.
This is where special NASA-invited guests get to watch launches from
You can see both pads from here
And also the assembly building
A life-size model of an International Space Station module
I think that's a zero-G shower
A real ISS module, ready for loading into a shuttle
Back on the beach. At high tide, it's not much.
So, I got up and headed south in the BMW to Cape Canaveral for the Kennedy Space Center tour. I wasn't quite prepared for how huge this place is. The visitor center parking area looks like DisneyWorld, it's so huge ... and it was pretty full too. I bought a ticket for the KSC tour and for one of the three IMAX films (they have two IMAX screens that run simultaneously, showing three different films).
Started with the tour. You hop on a bus that takes you from the visitor center into a secure area, to the LC-39 Observation Gantry, which is an observation tower for the two shuttle launch sites. On the way there, you drive by the Vehicle Assembly Building, which we've all seen lots of times on TV. Its the building where they prepare shuttles (and before that, Apollo missions) for launch, before the travel out to the launch pads on the tracked crawlers. The crawlers are pretty cool. Loaded, they move at 1mph on this very wide dirt road out to the launch pads. They go 2mph unloaded after a launch.
The observation tower includes a shuttle main engine, and a film about what happens between a landing and a launch. There's also a little museum of sorts with a model of a launch. And, of course, there are decent views of both launch pads (as well as the other rocket launch pads).
Then you hop on another bus, which takes you to the Apollo/Saturn V Center. This was pretty amazing. It's all about the Apollo moon missions. There are two films, one of which was quite moving, about how much it meant to the astronauts to be a part of history. There's one of the three remaining Saturn V rockets, which powered the moon missions. It's spectacularly huge. It's on its side, hanging from the ceiling. It's amazing. I had lunch here. Also at this building are more launch viewing sites for NASA guests, and a private viewing area for family of the astronauts. This would be an absolutely gorgeous place to watch a launch from -- you sit on the grass and watch the launch pads across a nice lake.
Then, onto another bus. I'll take this moment to mention that the bus rides include informative TV presentations, as well as humorous interjections from the drivers. On this particular bus ride, the driver stopped and pointed out both an alligator in the pond next to the road, as well as an enormous bald eagle nest. It was huge. The driver said it weighs (the nest) hundreds of pounds. It turns out that the KSC is also a wildlife refuge (and we lose autocross sites because no one wants to disturb the wildlife, yet they launch space shuttles from one) and in fact has more endangered species than any other area except for the Everglades.
This bus ride takes you to the International Space Station Center, in which you can walk through full-size models of space station segments, and actually see the real segments as they are prepared for loading into shuttles for launch. It's neat that you can see history being made like that.
After that, back to the visitor's center, where I walked through a mock-up shuttle (the "Explorer"). The Explorer, a fictional but full-size shuttle, is a realistic model. It even has tires on it that were used by other shuttles. For you autocrossers: the shuttle runs on BF Goodrich tires.
Then one of the three IMAX films. I saw "The Dream Is Alive", which is tagged as "an insider's view of the Space Shuttle program." I loved it. Then a walk through the "rocket garden", and back to the car towards Daytona Beach. Altogether, I spent about 5 hours at the Kennedy Space Center, and frankly I could have spent more.
On the way back, I headed up the coast on US-1 instead of I-95. Nicer, but slower drive. Stopped at the beach in New Smyrna Beach. I figured that with the Daytona madness this weekend, it would be a lot easier to park in another town. High tide hits at about 7:15pm these days though, and the tide was already very high, almost covering the entire beach. This area, like Daytona Beach, is open to vehicular traffic (yes, on the sand) at low tide times. I'm not sure what that says about the quality of the beach for sunbathing. Anyway, at this time, there wasn't enough sand to sit on the beach. But I did wade, and the water was very warm. A sign put it at 78 degrees. Wow.
When I got back to Daytona Beach, I washed the car at the campground, since I'd gotten some bird poop on it today. I feel better now :-) Then I headed out to Home Depot, around the corner, to do some errands. Also stopped by an auto parts store and bought a new trailer marker light to replace the one I trashed back in NY, new wiper blades, and some other little items. Home Depot was to replace a switch for the over-table light in the motorhome, which disintegrated this morning when I tried to turn it on.
Back at the motorhome, I replaced some of those items (but left others for daylight), and then headed out for some dinner. Got some Italian at a local place, and then came back here. I'm happy now ... I'm full, I'm typing this up, I'm watching Speedvision on TV, and I'm doing laundry in the motorhome's washer/dryer (for the first time).
Tomorrow, first thing, I'll go try to see Daytona USA if it's open during this local madness, then hit the road and head west. I'm shooting for making it to roughly an hour east of Pensacola tomorrow. We'll see.