Titusville, Florida

On Wednesday, we left Orlando and the Magic Kingdom, traveling east to Manatee Hammock State Park in Titusville.

First, isn't that a picturesque name for a park? Although we didn't see any manatees (or hammocks for that matter) we really enjoyed our stay there.  It was right on the water, and very "Florida" with egrets and ibis birds wandering the pathways through the palms and palmettos.

The view from Manatee Hammock

We were also directly across the Intercoastal Waterway from NASA and Kennedy Space Center.
On Thursday, we spent nearly the whole day touring that facility. We went to one of the multiple launch pads (this one was where the Shuttle used to launch from).

That "cradle" on the left side is what kept the Shuttle safe before launch

This is the ramp that the "Crawler' had to climb, carrying the shuttle.  Took about 3 hours.

Jack, in front of the flame chute. At launch time the chute was filled with 18,000 gallons of water in 6 seconds, to muffle sound and cool the structure during launch.

We visited the Vehicle Assembly Plant, which is a MASSIVE building (53 stories high inside) where the various rockets and space vehicles go for final assembly.

One of 4 bays where TALL space vehicles are assembled. 

Vehicle assembly area. That crane can lift 250 tons!

Prototype of next generation manned capsule, due to launch in 2017.  It can carry four astronauts, but precious little cargo. For cargo we depend on Russia.

There was a multimedia presentation about the initial lunar landing, better than anything we've seen before. We walked through the "Rocket Garden", where all the different types of space rockets stand at attention...from today all the way back to the beginning of the space program. There is an entire building dedicated to the Space Shuttle program and the International Space Station.  

Central large orange liquid fuel tank, flanked by two solid fuel cylinders. The solid fuel boosters get the Shuttle off the launch pad, then fall away. The liquid fuel gets the Shuttle into orbit, burning half a million gallons in 8.5 minutes. The Shuttle itself is basically a glider after that.

The actual Atlantis, the last shuttle that flew. The open doors expose the vast cargo bay. Very, very cool thing to see.

We saw two different control rooms, one from the Mercury program in the 1960's, and one from the Shuttle. Quite different. From slide rules to computers...think of it.

Mercury control center, 1960's. Very crude with simple analog instrumentation. There was very little data available to "control" the mission from Earth.

Shuttle control center, 2000's.

Just two short bridges away was beautiful Cocoa Beach. And we were there when it was 82 degrees and sunny. The water was 74 degrees, warm and wonderful. This has been one of our goals since leaving Oregon in June...to bask in the Florida sun. It was all we had hoped for. We probably could have gone back for a second day, but had other things on the agenda...

Ahhh! Sunshine and surf. Perfect combination