Kennedy Space Center

Saturday 26 February 2011
The Kennedy Space Center Visitors Center has a Space Shuttle Launch simulator. It tries to give you the feel of lifting off in the shuttle. Do you know what the "twang" is? It is when the main engine fires at T-06 seconds the whole launch vehicle wobbles forward once because of the push of the engines on one side. Then it bounces back and they ignite the solid rocket boosters. Those two guys cannot be turned off, so once they start you know you are going to go somewhere. At T-0 they blow apart the explosive bolts holding the vehicle in place and you start moving faster than the speed of sound in less than one minute. The two solid fuel boosters separate, and then the shuttle's main engines have to power down to around 74 percent for a short space because the air resistance against the shuttle is so intense. Then you power back up to 104 percent once the atmosphere thins out. Before you power down completely you feel three Gs of gravity pressing you into your seat and the remaining portion of the vehicle is going about 17,500 m.p.h., orbital speed. The simulator gives you the sensations of most of those things happening.

You are looking at the Vehicle Assembly Building, where they put the extra (moveable launch pad, orange tank, solid rocket boosters, and shuttle together in one piece). The size is deceptive. It’s the largest one story building in the world. The roof would cover Yankee Stadium and eight acres of parking. One of the stripes on the American flag is as wide as a freeway lane. Other interesting statistics: If you were 400 feet away at launch the fire and heat would kill you. If you were 800 feet away at launch the sound alone would kill you. If you were 1200 feet away at launch the alligators might kill you because the subsonic rumbles drive alligators nuts at launch time. By the way, we saw an alligator in a pond while there.

We also took a bus to see the old gantry used as an observation tower for the two main launch pads, and visited the old command center for the Apollo 8 launch first trip of a manned vehicle ever to leave the earth's gravitational field. But the most fun, beside the shuttle simulation, was probably the Saturn V museum that taught about the manned moon missions. Since more than half the visitors spoke other languages I assume this is a pretty good public relations tool for the United States.