When I returned to MousePlanet almost exactly a year ago, my column was titled “Eyes on Orlando,” because we (MousePlanet’s editors and I) figured that since I’m living in Central Florida now I would spread my focus from just Walt Disney World and cover other area attractions, as well. The truth of the matter is, when I first moved down here, my family and I did have annual passes to the Universal Studios theme parks and Seaworld. However, those passes expired before I started writing for MousePlanet again. Ironically, we didn’t renew those passes because we didn’t really enjoy those parks enough to justify spending the money on them so soon.
For Seaworld, We’ve learned that a one-year-on one-year-off pattern seems to be about right for us. When we had Seaworld APs we ended up visiting there about every other month or so and then, after five or six visits, we concluded that we were satisfied for awhile. Since it’s been over a year since we’ve had those passes, we’re tentatively planning to buy passes to Seaworld again later this spring.
On the other hand, we don’t plan to renew our Universal passes anytime in the near future. Although we did enjoy some parts of the Universal parks—most of the children’s play areas are top notch, for example—we just didn’t enjoy visiting them anywhere near as much as we enjoy the Disney parks. Almost always, as we were leaving one or other of the Universal parks, Barbara and I would ask each other, “Now why is it that we keep coming back here?” The attractions, restaurants, and overall experience just are not as fun and refreshing (to us, anyway) at Universal as at Walt Disney World. Of course, another family’s experiences, perhaps a family with teens, may be quite different than ours.
Of course, there are many other local attractions in Central Florida besides Walt Disney World, Universal Studios, and Seaworld. There are many, many “minor” attractions, dinner shows, and the like. However, the other major marquee attraction here is the John F. Kennedy Space Center.
Barbara and I last visited the Kennedy Space Center way back in 1991, several years before the boys were born, but we hadn’t been back since then. Now more than two years after moving here, my family and I have finally purchased passes to visit the Kennedy Space Center. Although I personally have a very strong interest in the space program (having grown up during the Gemini and Apollo programs, the excitement around the space race was something that I’ve actually lived through), I just didn’t think that my sons, now ages 9 and 5, would have a sufficient attention span to warrent visting the Space Center before now. (I must admit a bias, too. I personally feel that the United States should strongly pursue a return to the Moon, missions to Mars, and other scientific and exploratory space programs. I am convinced that the money spent by our nation through NASA is a research and development investment that provides hugh returns to our national economy.) So, with annual passes to the Kennedy Space Center now in hand, you can expect to see several articles about this “attraction” over the upcoming months.
Today’s article is on the “NASA UP Close” tour. This is an upgrade to the standard tour that is available to all-day visitors to the Space Center. The standard tour takes visitors to an observation gantry where they can view the huge Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) and Launch Complex 39 where the space shuttle (and previously, the Apollo) launches are done. From there, the standard tour takes visitors to the Apollo/Saturn V Center to see one of the few actual remaining “Moon rockets” in existance. The facility where International Space Station components are checked out prior to launch is the last stop on the tour.
The upgrades that you enjoy in taking the “NASA UP Close” tour, versus the standard tour, is that your bus takes you closer to the other active launch complexes where Atlas, Titan, and Delta rockets are still launched. In fact, a photo stop is made just across the Banana River from those pads. The bus also takes a close drive around the VAB, the crawlers (more on them later), and makes a photo stop very close to Launch Complex 39B. One last photo stop is provided close to the VAB before the bus drops everyone off at the Apollo/Saturn V Center. The rest of the tour experience is identical to that provided by the standard tour.
Let’s get started.
The NASA Up Close tour is an add-on to the regular Kennedy Space Center admission. The adult price was a hefty $23.32 while we paid $16.96 for each of the boys (ticket prices include a local 6 percent sales tax). For that, in addition to the somewhat expanded bus tour, we all also received a copy of the Kennedy Space Center Official Tour Book and a space shuttle lapel pin.
We boarded a bus at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center and took off just at our appointed departure time. (The standard tour is not scheduled. Instead, visitors queue up and take buses any time during the day. Only visitors paying for the upgraded tour have a specific departure time.)
As we started rolling, our tour guide introduced himself, gave us a brief overview of what we’d see on the tour, and told us a little bit about himself. By the time his short monologue was done, we’d arrived at a little grandstand just a few feet from the Banana River. We got out of the bus, made our way over to the grandstand, and listened to a verbal description of the launch pads we saw on the horizon.
First and foremost, of course, is the Vehicle Assembly Building and Launch Complex 39. This is now the Space Shuttle assembly and launch facility. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Apollo Moon missions were all prepped and launched from this facility. (Apollo 7, launched on a Saturn 1B booster, was launched from Launch Complex 34 in October 1968. Apollo 8, the first mission launched to the Moon and the first manned Saturn V mission, was launched from Launch Complex 39A in December, 1968. All subsequent Saturn V Moon missions as well as the Saturn 1B Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz missions were launched from Complex 39.)
The Vehicle Assembly Building viewed from across the Banana River. One of the largest buildings in the world by volume, the VAB was originally designed to permit the simultaneous assembly of four Apollo-era Saturn V boosters. Photo by Brian Bennett.
Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39B viewed from across the Banana River. Originally the Apollo launch complex, pad 39 was reworked for the Space Shuttle before the first Shuttle launch in 1981. Photo by Brian Bennett.
Space Shuttle Launch Complex 39A, now undergoing a major maintenance project, viewed from across the Banana River. Photo by Brian Bennett.
Atlas V Launch Pad 41, clearly identified as a United States Air Force facility, viewed from across the Banana River. Photo by Brian Bennett.
Titan IV Launch Pad 40 viewed from across the Banana River. Photo by Brian Bennett.
In the next photograph, located toward the bottom of the partially-enclosed service tower, one can make out the lower portion of a Delta IV booster that, at the time this photograph was taken, was being prepared for a mid-January 2006 launch.
The Delta IV Launch Pad 37, operated by Boeing, viewed from across the Banana River. Photo by Brian Bennett.
After just a few minutes, certainly less than 10, we climbed back aboard the tour bus to continue on our way.
The first destination was the Vehicle Assembly Building. The VAB is 52 stories tall and contains an interior space of 3.6 million cubic meters. The building was originally designed for the huge Saturn V boosters of the Apollo program, but now services the Space Shuttle. (Actually, the “orbiter processing facility,” has three hangars in which the shuttles themselves are reworked between missions. The VAB is now used to assemble the shuttle, liquid fuel external tank, and solid rocket boosters before launch.)
We never had an opportunity to go into the VAB. In fact, at this point of the tour we didn’t even stop. It wasn’t until after our return from the launch pads that we finally made a quick stop to permit those of us with cameras to take pictures of the building. Even then, we were restricted to a very small area before being rushed back onto the bus so we could continue on our way.
The Vehicle Assembly Building viewed from the tour bus. Photo by Brian Bennett.
The crawlerway provides a means for the crawler transporters to haul the assembled shuttle/tank/and boosters from the VAB to the Launch Complex 39 pads. I could not take a good photograph of either crawler transporter, as the bus made no stops near either crawler. It suffices to say that they are huge machines. According to the official tourbook of the Kennedy Space Center we were given as part of our tour package, each crawler weighs over 6 million pounds and has a top surface area larger than half a soccer field.
We drove past the two motionless crawlers and drove on an asphalt service road that ran parallel to the crawlerway, the two-tracked crushed rock path that the crawlers run on between the VAB and the launch pads of Launch Complex 39.
The crawlerway is a crushed rock path that lies between the VAB and the two Launch Complex 39 pads. Photo by Brian Bennett.
Still in the bus, we zipped past pad 39A (which, at the time of our tour, was having some maintenance work done to the service structures) and on to pad 39B. The bus stopped at an observation facility (where range cameras and other sensors are mounted to provide visual and data feedback to the launch controllers during an actual launch). For our purposes, the observation facility provided a good location for taking photos of pad 39B. Note, however, that even with a 10x zoom that my camera boasts, I was only able to take the below photos that still appear distant at best.
The rotating service structure, the shorter portion of the gantry on the left-hand side, rotates around to enclose the space shuttle during pre-launch preparation. Photo by Brian Bennett.
The storage tower, to the right, provides the massive dump of water that preceeds every shuttle (and every Saturn) launch. The water serves to provide vibration damping as the massive cluster of engines start thrusting. It is that vaporized water that billows away from the booster, providing even more drama just at the point of lift-off. Photo by Brian Bennett.
The liquid hydrogen stored in this tank is one of the cryogenic fuels used to power the three main shuttle engines. Photo by Brian Bennett.
After about 10 or 15 minutes, we were ushered back onto the bus and made our way back along the crawlerway’s service road to the VAB. It was here that we made our only stop anywhere near the VAB and I was able to take these photos.
In several of the photos you can make out some of the hurricane damage sustained by the building during the 1994 hurricane season. Portions of the roof were also damaged. Repairs to the building are rapidly being completed and a repainting of the building’s exterior is planned for the upcoming months.
The Vehicle Assembly building, which stands 52 stories tall, was designed to allow for the simultaneous assembly of four massive Saturn V boosters during the Apollo program. Photo by Brian Bennett.
The American flag painted on the building stands about 16 stories long. Each star measures over six feet across. Photo by Brian Bennett.
The old 1950s style NASA logo has been reintroduced. The last time the flag and NASA logo were repainted required a whopping 600 gallons of paint. Photo by Brian Bennett.
The bay doors were designed to allow the entire Saturn V booster, mounted on the crawler, to exit the building. With its external tank and solid boosters, the space shuttle is much shorter, so the bay doors only need to open about halfway. The new heavy-lift booster being planned for upcoming Moon and Mars missions will rival the Saturn V in height. Photo by Brian Bennett.
After snapping a few photos, we were herded back aboard the bus. We made a quick run over to see the Shuttle Landing Facility. Although we were given some information about it, the bus never stopped to allow for a better view.
Since the bus never stopped here, this is the best image I can provide of the huge shuttle landing strip located at the Kennedy Space Center. The runway, at 15,000 feet in length (plus an additional 2000 feet of “overrun” pavement) and 300 feet in width, is so large that it can be seen from space. Photo by Brian Bennett.
Finally, we drove off to the Apollo/Saturn V Center. This building now contains hardware from the actual Saturn V boosters that were built during the Apollo program to take a crew to the Moon. The Apollo missions 18, 19, and 20 were, unfortunately, all cancelled. One of the three boosters, SA 513, was reworked into the Skylab space lab in the mid-1970s and the pieces of Booster SA 515 are now on display at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama (where Werner Von Braun and his rocket men designed the NASA boosters that won the space race).
When you first enter the Apollo/Saturn V Center, you are ushered into a waiting room and then into a room that simulates the launch of Apollo 8, the first manned Saturn V mission. It was the mission commanded by Frank Borman that orbited the Moon at Christmas time in 1968. From high above the Moon, Borman and fellow astronauts Jim Lovell and Bill Anders read the story of creation from the first chapters of Genesis on that memorable Christmas Eve. However, the simulation that Apollo/Saturn V Center guests see is that of the launch of Apollo 8 some three days and 16 hours (give or take a few hours) before.
Choreographed status lights and data video monitors along with an audio sound track provide a small sense of what launch time in the Launch Control Center must have been like back in 1968. Photo by Brian Bennett.
When the demonstration is over, everyone is ushered out into the massive room where the Saturn V pieces are on display.
The booster sections that are on display here at the Kennedy Space Center are mostly from SA 514, the booster that would have been Apollo 19 had the later Moon missions not been cancelled. (The S-II and S-IVB stages are certainly from SA 514. The S-1C stage was moved here from the Michoud Assembly Facility at New Orleans and is either the one designated for SA 514 or for SA 515 and the instrumentation unit that was moved here from Marshall likewise was designated for either SA 514 or for SA 515.) Of course, these various stages were never actually assembled into a completed Saturn V booster, but they very well could have been and, in fact, were very much intended to be.
The first glimpse of the massive F1 engine cluster is dramatic. Photo by Brian Bennett.
Stepping back a bit allows all five F1s to be seen. These five engines provided the Saturn V with an initial thrust of about 7.5 million pounds. Photo by Brian Bennett.
That 7.5 million pounds of thrust is enough to power the 36 story tall booster. Photo by Brian Bennett.
The F1 engines ran at full power from lift-off until about 150 seconds into the launch. At this point, the booster would be about 33 miles above the Earth, but still short of the altitude needed to achieve Earth orbit.
The F1 engine, although considered to be a conventional engine (because it burned kerosene), was unique due to its enormous size and thrust capacity. Photo by Brian Bennett.
Several display boards provide historical and technical information about the booster and its systems. This one points out that during the 150 seconds that the F1s fired, they used up about 534,000 gallons of kerosene fuel. Photo by Brian Bennett.
The Saturn V’s first two stages, for example, created enough energy to be equivalent to all of the electricity used in New York City for an hour and a quarter. The power generated by just the first stage is more than 8000 times the total horsepower of the entire field of the Daytona 500. Photo by Brian Bennett.
The other side of the booster also displays the mission emblems of the Apollo missions. Photo by Brian Bennett.
Liquid hydrogen is a fuel that rocket designers prefer because of it burns with a very high thrust-to-weight ratio, or has a high-specific impulse. The J2 engine was designed to take advantage of that high-specific impulse. It was a bit of a gamble to employ liquid hydrogen as a fuel because NASA just didn’t have the same amount of experience with liquid hydrogen as they did with kerosene as a fuel. Even so, to achieve 200,000 pounds of thrust per engine, and save weight for the Apollo spacecraft and crew, the choice had to be made.
The J2 engine cluster of the Saturn V’s second stage were based on “unconventional cryogenics,” fueled with liquid hydrogen instead of kerosene. Photo by Brian Bennett.
The J2 engines didn’t merely provide thrust to the booster. They truly were fully integrated propulsion systems. This is especially true of the J2 in the third stage, which fired for a time during launch, but which would be shut down upon achieving Earth orbit. Finally, that same J2 would be fired again to send Apollo to the Moon. If it failed to reignite, then the astronauts would have no choice but to return to Earth much faster than planned.
The single J2 of the third stage is the engine that was fired to put the Apollo spacecraft into trans-lunar insertion (TLI). In other words, on its way to the moon from earth orbit. Photo by Brian Bennett.
The Instrumentation Unit (IU) provided the brains for the Saturn V system. Completely separate from the Apollo spacecraft, the Saturn V provided the power for launch and to thrust the spacecraft out of Earth orbit, but the two were distinctly separate systems. Wehner Von Braun’s design team pointed out that the Apollo spacecraft had so much else that it had to accomplish, that it would be better to keep all of the function for the launch and Trans Lunar Injection (the propulsion maneuver used to set a spacecraft on a trajectory to intersect the Moon) thrust capability separate and resident in the Saturn V.
The wisdom of that decision was borne out when Apollo 12 was launched in overcast weather conditions. The ionized water vapor and the quickly moving Saturn V worked together to cause a lightning strike-like effect in the spacecraft. Fortunately, the IU functioned flawlessly, the Saturn V reached Earth orbit, and (after some quick thinking by mission control in Houston), the Apollo spacecraft’s electrical system’s were reset and the order was given for Trans Lunar Injection. The rest of the mission continued without any problems whatsoever.
The Instrumentation Unit was the “brains” of the Saturn V, controlling all aspects of the booster’s functions after launch. Photo by Brian Bennett.
The command and service modules are the primary Apollo spacecraft. The command module is actually the capsule portion that, at the end of the Moon mission, parachuted into the ocean to be retrieved. The service module is the longer portion of the spacecraft with the small thrust engine. The service module contained the fuel cells for generating power, fuel and liquid oxygen tanks for the engine, and other supplies needed during the trip from the Earth to the Moon and back.
It was the explosion of one of the fuel cell oxygen tanks that caused the crisis for Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert, and Fred Haise on Apollo 13. Fortunately, the heroic efforts and intense cooperation of Mission Control and subcontractors all across the United States led to the safe return of the crew.
The command and service modules were designed and built by North American Aviation, now known as Rockwell International. Photo by Brian Bennett.
The Apollo/Saturn V Center also has this model of the “full stack” of a Saturn V booster along with its service gantry at the launch pad. Even in much-reduced size, the Moon rocket looks like a thoroughbred.
Even in much reduced size, the Moon rocket looks like a thoroughbred. Photo by Brian Bennett.
While the gangly Lunar Module looks like a spider on steroids. Actually, the Lunar Module is an engineering marvel. It’s the first spaceship designed to operate only in space (all other spacecraft, afterall, have had to return to the Earth at the end of their mission.
Designed and built by Grumman on Long Island, New York, the Lunar Module is a marvel of engineering. Photo by Brian Bennett.
Just outside the Lunar Theater, where Armstrong’s landing on the Moon is simulated, there are a couple of other artifacts on display: A spacesuit and a lunar rover.
Looking very similar to today’s spacesuits, the Apollo-era version was an effective design. Photo by Brian Bennett.
The lunar rover was used only in Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17, the last three Apollo missions. Photo by Brian Bennett.
The next, and last, part of the tour was another bus run over to the International Space Station (ISS) facility, where you can see mockups of several ISS modules, tribute is paid to Skylab, NASA’s mid-1970s space station project, as well as Mir and other Soviet space stations.
Built from the S-IVB stage of the Saturn V that would have powered Apollo 18, Skylab orbited Earth and hosted three teams of Astronauts performing various experiments in 1973 and 1974. Photo by Brian Bennett.
During the visit to the International Space Station building, vistors can see the clean room facilities where the ISS modules are prepped before being launched from the Kennedy Space Center to the Space Station.
These modules are all planned for future addition to the ISS. Photo by Brian Bennett.
Clearly, the ISS is a growing facility that promises much more result before it is finished. Photo by Brian Bennett.
After seeing what there was to see at the ISS building, we caught a bus back to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor’s Center.
I strongly recommend that any visitor to the Kennedy Space Center take the regular bus tour of the complex. Also, it’s clear that the additional cost that we paid to take the upgraded “NASA Up Close” tour versus the regular Kennedy Space Center bus tour provided a better view of launch complex 39, the VAB, and the only possible view of the Shuttle Landing Facility. However, unless your group includes folks who are really interested in the United States Space Program, I think the regular tour suffices nicely.
Our 9-year-old son, Allan, really enjoyed his day at the Kennedy Space Center. He is very much looking forward to returning to see more. On the other hand, Michael, our 5-year-old, often found himself bored. There just wasn’t much going on that allowed him to expend his energy nor are the displays and so on very fun for someone that isn’t able to read. Still, it was a fun day for all of us and we’ll definately be returning to spend more time at the Kennedy Space Center. You can certainly expect more articles on other aspects of the Visitor’s Center and other tours will.
