FACTLET
By Lloyd Campbell
If you’ve never been to the Kennedy
Space Center Visitor Complex and you are
reading this article, well you owe it to yourself
to make that trip at some point. If you have
been there before, but not in a few years, I’d
suggest that it’s time for a return trip.
The complex has undergone numerous
changes and updates, not to mention the
addition of the Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit.
The entire facility is top notch and offers you
the opportunity to see and learn about actual spacecraft, rockets, spacesuits, and many
more interesting artifacts.
In the Rocket Garden you will find many
of the early launch vehicles used by NASA
for both unmanned and manned spaceflight. From the 77-foot tall Juno rocket used
to launch some of the earliest satellites, a
Redstone and an Atlas that were used for
the Mercury launches, a Titan used in the
Gemini Missions, right up through the 223-foot
Saturn 1B used to test fly Apollo spacecraft
into Earth orbit, and many in between rockets
abound in the garden.
More than 1.5 million
people per year visit the
Kennedy Space Center
Visitor Complex.
Each rocket has information near it explaining what it is and what it was used for.
You’ll also find simulated Mercury, Gemini,
and Apollo Capsules that you can climb in to
see just how cramped those vehicles were.
There is also an actual Crew Access Arm from
the Apollo program that you can walk down
just as the Apollo 11 astronauts did on their
way to the Moon.
You can meet a real-life astronaut at the
Astronaut Encounter where an actual astronaut speaks a couple of times a day. After
the presentation, the astronaut normally has
time to take your picture with him or her,
along with a handshake and greeting! Also
available in the Astronaut Encounter theater
is a new presentation, “Eyes on the Universe:
NASA’S Space Telescopes,” a 3D 4K video
presentation which takes you back 13 billion
years using images from the Hubble Space
Telescope.
Also in the main visitors compex there is an
IMAX theater showing two different largeformat films throughout the day, as well as
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www.RocketSTEM .org