Thursday, July 26, 2007

2 More KSC Trips

Over the last 2 weeks, I've made 2 more trips out to Kennedy Space Center in Florida. These trips were much more relaxed than my last one so I got to do some more sight seeing. I've updated the KSC album with a bunch of pictures from the trips. The first trip included some work at the launch pad again and both trips included some work at the Space Station Processing Facility so there are pictures from both of these places. However, I think the coolest part of my trips was driving around the Cape Canaveral Air Force Base to see some of the old spaceflight memorabilia.

Andrew, my coworker and friend, and I decided to go see the Apollo I launch pad, where three astronauts tragically lost their lives in 1967. However, neither of us knew where it was and there were no signs pointing us in the right direction so we ended up on an interesting journey around the base. First, we visited a missile and space museum that a sign led us to. It was interesting, especially the fact that it was open but no one was there and the lights were off. I guess you can do that when badges are required just to get to it. We turned the lights on and had a look around (there are quite a few pictures in the album). Next, we stumbled upon the old lighthouse and a couple of Delta rockets on their launch pads (pic). At this point we had driven quite a bit and needed to go to the space center for some work.

We continued our quest the next day with some vague guidance. We ended up at a back entrance to the Shuttle Pad and also passed "The Beach House" which is one of the places crews hang out before launches. The guard at the Pad gate gave us some more directions and we eventually stumbled upon the Apollo I Pad. In fact, we realized after we got there that there was a direct route that ended on the complete opposite side of the pad. I thought our meandering was so funny that I made a Google My Map documenting the journey (I know I'm a nerd).

Apollo I Pad

So, there really isn't that much at the Apollo I Pad to see but I like the picture above (and there are others in the album) and it is cool to see where it happened. There is more to talk about but this is getting long and I am getting tired so it will have to wait. TO BE CONTINUED...

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