13 March 2023, Space Coast USA, Kennedy Space Center –

We were on the road in time to see an apocalyptic sunrise, thanks to the clouds that rolled in overnight. We were first in line at the entry gate at Kennedy Space Center, for our second visit.  Next to us was a family from northern Wisconsin; the youngest boy was literally jumping in the air with excitement, which I loved to see. 

 In the midst of a typical Florida downpour, we dashed to the nearest building, and looked through the Hall of Fame.  This contains all sorts of personal artefacts and memorabilia belonging to the famous astronauts who are inductees.  After that we bee-lined for the bus, which would take us to the Apollo-Saturn Center.  En route, we saw the SpaceX facility, the massive Vehicle Assembly Building, the launch tower which is looking the worse for wear after the Artemis launch last November; the two crawler transporters; and launch pad 39A off in the distance.  We also spotted a bald eagle, and alligators.

The Apollo-Saturn building has been purpose-built to house an actual Saturn V rocket, which is mounted to be parallel to the ceiling.  You can walk all around it, including directly underneath, from the five enormous first stage engines, all the way to the nose cone.  This gives you a fantastic perspective, especially when you see the size of the capsule which carried the Apollo astronauts, relative to the Saturn rocket. 

The center contains many other fascinating objects, most of them authentic rather than mock-ups; ie built for the Apollo program and either flown and retrieved, used for training purposes, or not required for an actual flight.  Hence we saw things like the actual Apollo 14 capsule, a real lunar module (LM9) intended for Apollo 15 but not taken to the moon; and lunar rovers built and used for training.  We even walked across the very gantry that Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins walked across to access the Apollo 11 capsule, except that they were 300 feet in the air at the time.  We saw space suits that travelled to the moon, and touched a moon rock.  It was an absorbing morning.

After the bus ride back to the main visitor complex, we completed the things we hadn’t yet done, including a great talk by Jim Reilly, a Shuttle astronaut who went on to be the chief of the US Geological Survey (one of his jobs in that role was to officially shift the South Pole marker, which they adjust annually).  We also saw some of the more recent developments – a Dragon capsule, an Orion capsule, and the SpaceX side booster which famously launched a red Tesla and the mannequin dubbed “Starman” into space back in 2018.

We ended the day tired but satisfied that we’d seen and done everything we came for.  We hope our little friend from Wisconsin was still jumping for joy at the end of his day.