# Visit NASA in Florida



## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

I spent all day at NASA's Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida. I highly recommend seeing it:
https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com

It's operated by a private company, but they have all kinds of amazing NASA property. It's located on the federally-owned NASA property near the launch pads, NASA headquarters, etc. The things that blew me away were:


 a real Saturn V rocket on display horizontally. The rocket engine has been fired in the past. It is absolutely enormous!
 a real moon lander, an extra one built that was never sent. It's in the same place as the Saturn V
 *The actual space shuttle Atlantis*. Just incredible!! There are scorch marks all over it and on the belly. Canadarm quite prominent
 A shuttle launch simulator that's frighteningly realistic, designed by past astronauts. You feel about 2 G's in it.
 Pieces of the destroyed Challenger and Columbia shuttles. A nice memorial.
 The extra-fee "Up-Close Explore" bus tour showed launch pads and the incredible vehicle assembly infrastructure. Great tour.

And I didn't have enough time to see the (free) IMAX movies, but I bet they were awesome too.

I'm an electrical & computer engineer so I'll admit it ... I love space stuff. But I did not anticipate how much I'd LOVE this place. The "Up-Close Explore" bus tour is really worth the additional $25 (making the whole visit $50 + $25) and the guide explained a lot. It was a great drive around much of the NASA real estate, views of the Space-X launch site, the launch pads for both commercial and NASA missions.

Those launch pads you're seeing, from very close up, are the ones they've used to launch all the shuttle missions and many of the giant rockets.

Very nice views overall. There's also lots of wildlife in the region because it's in the wetlands. I saw bald eagles, a dophin fin in the bay, and a huge number of birds, storks, etc.

If you're in Florida near Orlando, go and see this. Budget for the whole day.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Note on costs. With the optional bus tour (which I recommend) it came to:

$50 admission
$25 Up-Close tour
$10 parking
$8 snacks (a full lunch would cost more)

In total, $98 USD after taxes. Not cheap. Check your hotel's tourist brochure stack as they have little coupons. Mine had $2.50 off admission.


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## wendi1 (Oct 2, 2013)

I am also crazy for space stuff, james... this one is on my little list. Thanks.


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## peterk (May 16, 2010)

Definitely a cool place to visit. By pure coincidence, I got to see shuttle Atlantis launch when I was in Florida back in 2008. It was simply amazing to watch!


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## nwmea (Sep 10, 2015)

Sounds amazing, its an awesome experience something you could only see in movies is not in front of your eyes but i have work a little to get more low price.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

peterk said:


> Definitely a cool place to visit. By pure coincidence, I got to see shuttle Atlantis launch when I was in Florida back in 2008. It was simply amazing to watch!


Wow! That would be amazing


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## Dibs (May 26, 2011)

I went there last year and it was great! I think it is well worth your money, and if you compare it to Disneyworld or Universal Studios still 2-3 times cheaper.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

james4beach said:


> I spent all day at NASA's Kennedy Space Center near Cape Canaveral, Florida. I highly recommend seeing it ... I'm an electrical & computer engineer so I'll admit it ... I love space stuff. But I did not anticipate how much I'd LOVE this place ...


It is cool ... though I wished I'd allowed two days and investigated it earlier (see comment below).



If you are in Washington DC, then you'll probably love the couple of Smithsonian museums along this bent (as opposed to the art or American History ones). 


The National Air and Space Museum downtown at the Mall had a moon lander, rockets, a Russian spacecraft and the Apollo 11 Command Module Columbia. That's in addition to Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis as well as the Rutan model 97 Voyager that flew the first successful aerial nonstop, non-refueled circumnavigation of the Earth that included two passes over. The Canadian connection is that the test flight in '86 broke the record set by a production Canadair CP-107 Argus of the RCAF.

http://airandspace.si.edu/visit/mall/


The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy center, by the Dulles Airport has an SR-71 Blackbird, a Concorde, one of the Japanese the Aichi M6A1 "Seiran" aircraft intended for the submarine air craft carrier, the Enola Gay B-29 Superfortress bomber, a concept vehicle for landing the apollo capsules on land, one of the isolation trailers for returning astronauts and some of the various cameras used by the space program.

The Canadian connection I recall is the De Havilland-Canada DHC-1A Chipmunk, Pennzoil Special flown by aerobatic and movie pilot Art Scholl. I sent a picture to my relative in LA who said he'd been at several air shows where Scholl was flying that aircraft.

When I visited, the space shuttle was the glider version, Enterprise was there but I see on the web site, this has been switched for Discovery, which has been in space. It was also a cool day to go as their guest presenters were the Tuskegee Airmen (bit of a misnomer considering two of the presenters were women).

http://airandspace.si.edu/visit/udvar-hazy-center/




peterk said:


> Definitely a cool place to visit. By pure coincidence, I got to see shuttle Atlantis launch when I was in Florida back in 2008. It was simply amazing to watch!


That was my mistake ... I flew out too early to see this ... :stupid:

From what I recall of the bus tour, they said it was the only time two separate shuttles were prepped and sitting on the launch pads due to timing issues plus the plans to move on from the shuttle program. :biggrin:


Cheers


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

When we were kids our dad took us to Florida and Washington all the time and it was a wonderful experience.

We didn't have a lot of money and slept in the car in Holiday Inn parking lots, bought food at the markets.......but we went every year and saw a lot.

We visited the FBI building, where they have the guns of famous outlaws and lots of historical items. The Smithsonian is just amazing. The Americans keep everything from history.

They had stuff from all the Presidents going back to George Washington, the Betsy Ross sewn flag, the Hope diamond, the Ironclads...........so much stuff that they have to rotate it around every few years.

We always spent a couple of days in Washington, but it was never long enough.

One thing I remembered being surprised about..........was back in those days you could just drive by the White House on the road out front.

In Florida, we went to NASA and the Barnum and Bailey circus grounds when they were closed and it was free and to Marineland when it was closed and free.

Nothing much happening but we were there and it didn't cost anything. Dad would always talk the groundskeepers into letting us in to walk around.

I suppose everyone felt sorry for us. I remember visiting an orange grove and the farmer giving us a bag of oranges for free..............LOL.

My retirement plan was to buy a used Mustang convertible and travel US Route 66 start to finish. Haven't got to it yet though.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Now I feel really dumb. I have a work trip to Washington DC coming up and I didn't budget enough time to visit the Air and Space Museum.


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

I am surprised ... I don't mean to rub it in but I'd have to say the Smithsonian is one of the biggest bargains going. How does one beat "free admission", where it is up to you to put in donations?

The Metro likely will get one there cheaply with multiple stops on the Washington Mall. Just be prepared for the fact the train doors do not retract so make sure to be clear when they are closing.

I seem to recall the two weekends before and after the training course, the hotels in downtown Washington were $300 USD plus. 

A quick check of the Metro system found a hotel a block from the Metro station for $99 USD including full hot breakfast. Pre-paying the first night of the stay dropped the rate to $69 USD (plus taxes and fees). The Metro ride to go downtown was something under $3 a trip, with a ten minute ride to the Smithsonian stop.


It was an eye opener. I'd heard a lot of about the Smithsonian but didn't realise there were so many of them (fourteen, likely not including the offsite stuff). I had assumed Smithson was or had some sort of connection to the USA but discovered he was British where he never set foot in the USA.


Cheers


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

Think of these next couple of posts as incentive to make sure the next opportunity is taken advantage of ... :biggrin:


If I've done it right, there should be three pictures from Dulles and the next three should be from the mall downtown.



Enjoy!


Dehavilland Chipmunk Acrobatic Plane








Enterprise Glider








Concorde with a long view for one of the hangers


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## Eclectic12 (Oct 20, 2010)

Now for the next three ...

Rockets ...








US to Russian Space Linkup








Lunar Module


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