Our second day that we went to the space center, we had a guided bus tour set up for 11:00 am, so when we got there we went right to the Atlantis building again. We wanted to experience again going in the theatre rooms and seeing the Atlantis through the screen .It was awesome again as people were clapping and hooping it up. After that we walked around a little till our bus tour. Your daily ticket includes a 40 minute bus tour out to some of the launch sites and a drive by of the Vehicle Assembly Building, VAB for short. But we decided to take the guided two-hour tour. The bus tour took us out over the water causeways to some of the launch pads, and then to the some of the headquarters buildings and final assembly buildings of some of the capsules and main pieces of spacecraft. We then had a visit to the historic launch pad 39A, and 39B ,where most of the Apollo flights and a lot of the Shuttle missions took off from. Then we had an outside tour of the Vehicle Assembly Building, WOW. This one story building is over 525 feet tall and is the largest single floor building in the world. This thing you cannot even grasp how tall and big it is. The VAB is where the Apollo and shuttles would be mounted upright and attached to the main service structure. After that a huge crawler would go under it and affix itself to the bottom. The whole assembly then transports itself to the launch pads. We were lucky enough to see one of the main doors open and inside is the new space launch system superstructure. Again its hard to fathom how huge all this is. After that we ended up at the Apollo/Saturn V Center, where there is an actual Saturn V rocket inside. The building is over 400 feet long, houses the complete rocket along with the lunar lander, and the Apollo 14 command module. I was in heaven as this is what I wanted to see most.  We spent about 4 hours in the center ,more than Melissa wanted but oh well. It was a great experience and the power and technology it took to get man to the moon.

Historic launch pad 39a

Launch pad 39b

Closer pad 39a. The towers are not only for communications, but serve as lightning rods.

Notice the elevation of the concrete launch pad, under which in the center it is hollow and allows the exhaust of the rockets to escape. The water tower, on launch releases @ 400,000 thousand gallons of water into the channels and instantly vaporizes the flames. I always thought it was to suppress the smoke, but the water deadens the sound of the rocket by over 30 percent. Also if you are within 100 yards at launch you are instantly vaporized, if you are 800 yards away the vibration of the sound kills you. The safest distance is 3 miles away.

The VAB building, read below to get a feel of how big it is.

A bus can drive on the stripes.

The VAB with the new space launch system.

The swivel control arm that let the crew into the ship. Huge

Launch control building attached to the VAB. Notice the road, this is what the massive crawler drives on. Each lane is 30 feet wide. The top layer is of Alabama river rock, which does not contain anything to cause a spark, it is 2 feet thick, under that is four feet of granite rock ,and then four to six feet of compacted clay . Over ten feet deep of road ,and over three and a half miles of it.

The shuttle being taken to the launch pad on the giant crawler.. Amazing

The crawler.

Notice the tracks each one is the size of a greyhound bus, a total of eight.

This crawler is on its mounting, but you can get a size of it by the huge crane underneath. A monster.

Close up, the crawler id driven by one guy, it has a top speed of two miles and hour. When a spacecraft is on it, it goes a whopping 1/2 mile an hour. There are eight men total that drive the crawler to the pad, each one drives for twenty minutes then another takes over, all they can take with the stress involved. Not for me, and remember these were built in the late 1960’s

Saturn V rocket and gantry. Saturn V is over 350 feet tall.

The five main F-1 engines for the Saturn V rocket. The rocket was over ninety percent fuel so it took engines like this to get it into space.

Perspective with people. Huge

This is the main engine, over twelve feet wide and sixteen feet high. And five of them on the Saturn V.

The bottom line tells it all, the power is unreal.

Once the first stage was spent it was let loose and the second stage rockets took over smaller than the main engine it got the ship into orbit.

Second stage propelled the ship to orbit and kept it there, then propelled the ship to the moon, was jettisoned in space, where the third stage took over.

Third stage took it to the moon ,had to get to 24,000 miles and hour to get there.

Once at the moon the third stage was let loose and just left the command module and the lunar lander, which was housed in this bay, the command module, up front would separate ,turn around and go into this cone and retrieve the lunar lander.

The lunar lander, which went to the moon and landed. The upper part above the silver would be what the astronauts were in and what they lifted off the moon in. The lower part stayed on the moon.

Command module and service module all that’s left of the massive Saturn V rocket. The front clear part is where the lunar lander would be connected to and let go of to go to the moon and back.

Three men sat in the command module to the moon and back, two left to go to the moon on the lunar lander. After returning from the moon only the command module, Silver thing came back to earth. About 12 feet wide and 10 feet high.

Actual Apollo 14 command module.

They also had a tribute area for the three astronauts killed in the Apollo I ship while doing launch training. The ship at that time had pure oxygen in it and a spark caused a fire. Because of this the program was delayed getting to the moon for a year and a half, but over 1100 issues were found and fixed.

Monday and Tuesday we went to the space center here in Titusville. We decided to buy the multiday pass as we knew we would go more than one day. The multiday pass is good for one full year of entry into the center. A one day entry is $50.00 for seniors which we are now. The multiday pass was $82.00 for a whole entry for a year. So for two days it was cheaper. Right off the place was amazing. I am kind of Space Geek. When I was in my early teens I was into everything and anything there was to do with space and travel. I had tons of books, posters, and all the model’s of the Mercury , Gemini, Apollo, and the starship Enterprise from Star Trek and the Jupiter II from Lost in Space. I even had a poster of June Lockhart from Lost in Space in her silver suit, signed. They were all on my dresser top all laid out in their own sections. Those were the days.

Before we went to the center we went to the Merritt Island Refuse Center. It is over 100 thousand acres of a preserve. It is part of the space center but has never been used. The center only uses another 40,000 acres of the island. It’s not really an island but divided by the Banana river, from the mainland, kind of barrier island. The space administration chose it because it was in the wilderness of Florida and by the ocean where they could launch over. Plus it is close to the equator, where it is shorter of a distance to get into orbit. any way they bought it or took it in 1953 and displaced or threw out over 300 people who were living there. At that time there was only one bride and little power to the island. That all changed after the government got it. They had to build roads ,bridges, causeways, railroad tracks and the complex for the launches etc.The center back in the day used to be called The Cape, than Cape Canaveral, then Cape Kennedy and now The Kennedy Space Center.

We spent the whole first day visiting the visitor complex, they have a Rocket garden, I max movies of early and present day launches. A heroes and Legends building with a tribute to the early astronauts. A museum with the Gemini, and Mercury capsules, and all related early stuff.Also a lot of interactive stuff for hands on. But by far the biggest draw is the Space Shuttle building. The Shuttle Atlantis is there, you first go into a room and are taken back to 1969 when the shuttle was envisioned and goes through the history of it being designed. Then you go into a theatre type room and are shown a launch of the shuttle and when the music ends the screen turns transparent and you are face to face with the actual shuttle. People we clapping and hooting it up. It was a neat experience. The Shuttle is amazing and big, it is on display on an angle and you can see the bottom and the open bay doors. All kinds of stuff there, actual engines, and a shuttle experience ride.When you get in there are about 7 rows of seats fitting about 7 people in a row. You buckle in and the doors close. You are to imagine you are now in a pod inside the shuttle bay. It simulates an actual take off. It is hard to explain but actual astronauts say it is very realistic. It was a great day. We did not go to the Apollo V building as it is a bus ride, we saved that for the next day. The pics below show some of the neatest stuff, i will have some descriptions on each.

This is Merritt Island and the Space Complex

This is the Rocket garden, we had a 20 minute tour of it. These are the actual early 1960 rockets. With the Mercury and Gemini capsules on top. Even though they are big, they are nothing compared to the Saurn V and the shuttle. Maybe the tallest here is 100 feet.

The original seven, OH wait who is that lovely women on the right. These were the original seven air force pilots chosen to become the first Astronauts in space. John Glenn is thrid from the left.

An actual Gemini capsule, had a crew of two. About eight feet wide and ten feet high

This is the entrance to the shuttle museum. WOW. Not even the shuttle.  the middle tank is the external tank which fueled the shuttles five main engines. It is the orange cylinder. It about thiryt feet wide and over one hundred twenty feet long. It contained two types of liquid fuel ,both stored at over 375 degrees below zero. When they combine they ignite. The shuttle is attached to the prongs sticking out at the bottom and top. The other two tanks are the solid fuel booster rockets. They have solid fuel in them and need a sourse of ignition. They are about firteen feet wide and over one hundred twenty feet high.

When the shuttle is being launched, at 6.6 seconds the 3 main engines on the shuttle are ignited. When that happens the shuttle does what they call a twang, it rocks to one side about 8 feet, then comes back level, this is because the engines are tilted so they will not burn into the soild fuel boosters. At zero seconds the solid fuel boosters are lit, they cannot be turned off once ignited. When you see it on TV you cannot really notice it but by the time the shuttle clears the tower or about two seconds in flight it is going over 100 miles an hour. The shuttle also does what they call a roll ,after lift off it rolls over a bit ,this is because of the engines being tilted a little. So after the roll the engines are lifting the ship on the correct angle to get out of the atmosphere.(Rockets do not go straight up, they would burn up) The solid fuel boosters burn for two and a half minutes then are dropped off the external tank and land in the ocean. They are then picked up and reused for another launch. The external tank for the main engines burns for eight and a half minutes, then is dropped off the shuttle. It then burns up in rentry. With out the boosters rockets the shuttle could never achive orbit. In order for something to stay in orbit, it has to be traveling at 17,500 miles per hour. Once at that speed it can stay there forever, Who knew, all the stuff up there satalites etc, travel that fast.

Bottom of the tanks

The Shuttle Atlantis, about 125 feet long and over 55 feet wide. Holds a crew of seven

Front nose, and cockpit, round holes are thursters to manuvar in space.

Three main engines of the shuttle, plus a handsome guy. The other two smaller engines and thrusters are for slowing down the shuttle for rentry. When the shuttle is in space it is traveling backwards and upside down. This is for two reasons, in case any space debris was to hit the shuttle it would be back here and flying upside down keeps the shuttle cool from the sun as the rays bounce off the heat tiles on the bottom. The two smaller engines have fuel tanks and are fired to turn the shuttle upright and point it forward for landing.

Main engine HUGEAAA

As big as they are they are nothing compaired the the Apollo engines, which i will post on later.

The bottom of the shuttle. It has over 24,000 individual tiles glues on the bottom and sides of the wings. This prevents it from overheating on rentry. It’s hard to see but each one is about 5 inchs by 5 inchs, made of silica, which displaces heat. We were told you could heat a tile to over 3000 degrees and two seconds later hold it in your hand. All in all there are only about 50 tiles replaced on the Atlantis, with 33 missions to space. In front of the black holding arm there are two bays doors, they open for the landing gear and cannot be closed after opening

The Airstream bus for transporting the crew to the shuttle.

The toilet, men use the tube and women the seat. It is all suction driven ,not a spot of waste can be let loose in the cabin

This is your bedroom with bed, you sleep standing up in the bag, as you are weightless, who cares.

There was also a tribute room to the two shuttles we lost. One was the Challenger, afer liftoff, and the Dicovery on rentry. It was a little moving. All together there were six shuttles built. Five flew in space, we lost two and one was for training.

It was amazing to learn all about this stuff again, i was like a little kid, Melissa kept telling me to calm down. The next day would be even better.

We are now at Silver Springs State Park, near Ocala. We left Christmas Rv park about 11:00, in the muck and mud. We had a very heavy downpour last night for about an hour, and the park being already wet, got really wet. In fact I had to hitch up in about two inches of water. Was a little worried about getting out but had it in four-wheel drive and there were no issues. We arrived here about 1:40 or so. Drove about 105 miles total. So far this is a really nice park, we have a very big pull through, and lots of space. All the spots seem to have lots of room between them. We are kind of in a pine forest with low brush, like it a lot. We will be here for two weeks, and have heard there is a lot to do. Pics below of our site.

On another note ,earlier in the week we went to the Kennedy Space Center. What an awesome place. I will make a few posts on that in the next couple of days.

The other day we went to the warbird museum. It was very cool, they have 45 vintage aircraft in their collection and are restoring many others to put on display. The museum itself had a lot of artifacts and stories from different war periods, but the best was the three hangers full of aircraft. Most do not fly any more but a good many of them do fly and a few are on loan that fly all the time. when we got there, there was a tour already in progress, so the lady told us where to find them. When we got there, we could not find any one but heard voices coming from inside this 20 foot long nose section of a B-52 bomber. We waited a few minutes and they came out and the guide wanted to know if we wanted to join the tour and take a look in. so we did, this is an actual 20 foot section of the famous B-52 bomber from the late 1950′ to early 60’s. When you got in the lower part it was crammed with all kinds of electrical gear and two seats. This is where the Engineer and navigator sat. No thanks for me. No bigger than 4 square feet. If they had to bail out the hatch below them would blow out and they would eject seat and all out the bottom of the aircraft. We then went up a ladder about five feet up to the pilot and co- pilot seats, wow tight as all get out. There are eight engines on a B-52, ,so many gauges, throttles and hardly a windshield. If they had to bail out the top hatch over them would blow out and they would be ejected out the top of the plane. Melissa got to sit in the pilot’s seat. After we got out of there the rest of the tour lasted about two hours. We saw aircraft from WWII to Vietnam era and the present. It was really awesome. The photos below are of some of the planes we saw.

A replica of the Red Baron’s plane, it flies.

P-51 Mustang WWII

B-25 Mitchell WWII, flies and privately owned. Made famous by the Doolittle Tokyo raid in 1943

Killer B, actually flew in combat in WWII

TBF Avenger Dive bomber, early WWII being restored. These flew off of an aircraft carrier, notice the folding wings, so they could get more planes on the ship. Took three men to fold the wing. Had a three-man crew with about a 20′ torpedo underneath. These were decimated early in the war, to slow, but at the battle of Midway they did their job and sank four Japanese aircraft carriers. George W. Bush Sr. Piloted one of these and was shot down but rescues later by an American Submarine.

F4F Hellcat, another carrier aircraft with the folding wings. This was the best fighter the U. S. had at the start of the war in the Pacific. The Japanese Zero was much faster and more maneuverable , but this had more armor in it and could take more damage where the Zero had none and if you could hit it usually burst into flames. I also learned that these planes in the early days were started, with a one foot cylindel, with eight shotgun shells in it. They put it into a compartment in the back of the engine and after the engine was primed with fuel, they did that by turning the propellar by hand. The pilot they flipped a switch and the engine started to turn over, which in turn shot off the shells into each cylinder of the engine and it came to life. No thanks.

Korean Era early helicopter

F-86 Sabre, Korean war, and the first jet fighter the U. S. Ever had. This flies and was really neat to see. The black part at the tip of the aircraft is an early type of targetting system. The pilot saw a small circle in his windshield and when it lined up with an enemy aircraft he know he could fire his six cannon up front .

Second generation Super Sabre, Korean War, Painted in Marine colors though.

Late Korean War into Vietnam Troop carrying Helicopter, could carry 10 men. Used a lot in Korea for Rescueing downed pilots.

Vietnam era

Vietnam era Ugly duck ,big bulkly meduem bomber notice floding wings launched off an aircraft carrier. Also notice the little arm coming off the front wheel. This locked into the catapult system in the deck and the steam catapault would send them at high speed off the deck into the air.

Vietnam era, only prop plane uesed ,but they had three tyes, one had a bubble mounted above and it was ued to jam enemy radar, one hade a round disc above it to be used as a far out reach radar to find enemy planes. And the one here was called the hopper, it was used to bring in extra supplies and men, but especially the mail to the men on the ships.

The tomcat . Later 1980’s as seen on the movie top gun, wings were straight for low speed and swept back to go to high speed .

F-18 Hornet, top fighter, now flown by the Blue Angles.

The best for last, this is a WWII  C-47 transport. It flies and is privetly owned. This particular aircraft is famous, it flew three missions on D-Day. It’s first mission was late at night on June 5th 1944, when it carried 32 paratroopers, over the English Channel to Normandy. It came back and flew 32 more paratroopers over, came back and towed 2 gliders with 24 men each over to there landing zone in Normandy. It is shown here painted in it’s invasion colors, with the three stripes, representing Victory. It is mostly original ,but has new engines and a few other improvements. It also took part in the Belin Airlift of late 1945.

 

 

Went to Fort Christmas Historical park here. It is an exact recreation of the fort built here in 1837. In 1837 the army sent 2000 men and equipment down this way to build an outpost. They hacked and chopped there way building roads and fording streams and the swamps. They came to a small creek near here, and on December 25th they started to construct there outpost. They finished on Dec 27. Took two days to construct the fort about 80 feet square, with 12′ high walls, and two blockhouses. Had one building, inside for storage ,all the men stayed outside in the elements. A company of about 80 soldiers remained encamped at the fort. They named it Fort Christmas, as it was the day they started construction on it. So that’s how the little Hamlet here of Christmas Florida came to be. This was during the second Seminole war with the Indians. As the war progressed south most things started to be shipped by sea. As a result of this the fort was abandoned 3 months later in March of 1838. It sat that way for over a hundred years, when it was found in decay they made drawings and photos of the fort. There is no evidence of the fort anymore. In 1976 a replica of the fort was built at this park to honor its past. It was pretty neat to see, and to think they had no roads or anything as they made there way down here.

Also at the fort were 10 old houses, if you could call them that from the late 1880’s to early 1900’s. They all have been moved here from there original locations. They show how hard it was to live down here is isolation and eeck out a living.

This is the post office from the late 1880’s, it was added on to the small house where the postmaster lived . The building to the right side is the kitchen and dining room, a luxury in that day ,most kitchens were out side, under the porch or just outside.

Melissa handing over a letter to the post office, telling me how much she love’s me.

Hard to see in this photo but the middle is open on both ends, this is where the cooking and eating was done. There are 2 rooms on either side, one is a bed room, one is a parlor, one is a mans seating area, and one is for the women where there is all her knitting and household items

This house is about 14’x14′. A bed and a few dressers on one end, and the small fireplace and seating area on the other. This house was a little bit of luxury as to the covered carriage area. This was a neat place to visit and learned a lot of the history down here in Florida.

Today we went to the beach. Cocoa beach, which is on the Atlantic coast here. It was hot today about 86, but felt nice on the beach . We spent about 3 hours or so there and walked about 2 miles on the sandy beach getting our feet wet with the waves washing ashore. The Cocoa beach area proper is very busy and a tourist trap, so we drove further down to where there was a park ,and the parking was free. One thing we really noticed was that there were quite a lot of fisherman on the beach, not sure what they are after, but one guy said he caught a 3 foot shark once. We left and drove down historic route 1, (We have been on it a lot lately) and stopped at the Twistee Treat, for an ice cream ,boy was it good with the heat.

Also last night we saw a rocket launch ,well part of one as we are about 25 miles away. But when the sky lit up I knew it had lifted off, and waited a few seconds for it to come above the trees. The photo isn’t the best but it was neat, we could see it go up and up and then out of sight.

Yep, we are in Christmas Florida now. It is located about 30 miles east of Orlando ,and about 10 miles, west of Titusville, by the space center. The park here is right off the main road going east, west. It is an older park, with some permanents residents, but has been updated with new bathrooms, showers, pool and the like. It used to cater to just airstream trailers, back in the day but has expanded to allow big rigs here. They have full hook ups with 50 amp, sewer, water. It is in kind of pine woods area, with sand roads and grass sites. They have had a lot of rain here and it is quite muddy. From here we will be visiting the Titusville area, space center, warbird museum and some of the wildlife preserves. Will be here till the 28th of February.

Before we left in September on our journey I bet my brother-in-law Doug, that I could go without a hair cut till May. Well I made it 5 months, and lost the bet. I literally could not stand it any more, especially with it growing over my ears, so early this week I said that’s it, going to the barber. I went to Solid Rock Barber shop here in Clermont. Had to wait a few minutes there, but when the barber put me in the seat, he said just a cut above the ears. I said no, want 2 fingers on top, and 4 blades on the side just like i always get. He seemed a little lost and asked again, and that’s the way he cut it. When he was just about done he said i never figured you as a guy with this short of a cut. I told him about the bet and he finally understood. Boy did i feel better, he did a good job and all for $15.00 so i gave him a twenty and was on my way. It may seem like a trivial thing but man was it getting to me. So now Melissa says i look back to normal and not hippy looking. How much was the bet, never going to tell.

A bus ride, yep. The other day we went for a monster bus swamp ride. We took a short drive to the Showcase of Citrus roadside stand, and it turned out to be a 2000 acre ranch. It was pretty neat they have all kinds of citrus products, anything you can really think of. The ranch has 1000 head of cattle and about 900 acres of orange trees, mostly for juice. Of course they have the monster bus ride, it takes you though the ranch property and it was a blast. It lasted about an hour. They are old converted school buses with their tops removed and bench seating put in. The undercarriage is all beefed up and they have 6 foot high by 4 foot wide monster tires. All turn when you turn the steering wheel. Our guide and driver told us all about the ranch and pointed out different things along the way. The bus was filled, it holds about 40 people. It was a fun time and learned a few things about this part of Florida.

Melissa as a life guard, watch out

She is eating a shark

One of the buses.

A smaller one

Our ride through the swamp

An old abandoned water truck used for whiskey in the prohibition days, the cops found them and they tried to get away, nope, truck hasn’t moved since, hence the name of the creek, Whiskey creek.

The other day I rode my bike to the beach from the campground. There and back is about a five mile ride. When I got to the parking lot for the beach, I could not find a beach. Then I saw a four foot wide walk way and boardwalk, over a swamp. So I took it, after about 300 feet or so there is the beach. Not a very big beach but very sandy and a nice view. There is also swimming there but I don’t think I will do that. There is a really old big tree there so I took a picture of it as it was pretty neat, about the only really big tree around. When I did that I noticed off to the side a monument. A monument, so I walked over to it. It is dedicated to a Lt. Dean Gilmore, who in November of 1944 was flying low level training missions in his P-51 mustang crashed into Lake Louisa and was killed, he was 23 years old.. Prior to that he was in Sicily and flew 91 combat missions, only to come home and be killed, too bad. In 2001 the wreckage of his plane was found when the level of the lake was low. It was recovered and a monument was erected in his honor.

The boardwalk over the swamp to the beach.

The beach

The big tree, moss covered.

The monument to Lt. Gilmore

A plaque by the bathrooms with a little story