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It�s located along Florida�s coast next to the Atlantic Ocean, about
an hour�s drive east of Orlando. Kennedy Space Center covers more than
34 000 hectares of land, swamp and waterways. It�s home to two launch
pads, one of the world�s longest runways and the world�s third biggest
building.
In the beginning the center was known as NASA�s Launch Operations
Center. After President Kennedy�s assassination in 1963, the center
was renamed in his honour, becoming the John F. Kennedy Space Center.
Visitor Complex:
The KSC Visitor Complex is the place where all the tourists come. In
the Visitor Complex you may make a lot of different things, for example:
Watch different presentations or movies, go in the Rocket Garden, where
the rockets on display made America�s first steps into space possible.
You may also visit the space shuttle plaza where you can walk through
a full scale space shuttle and imagine the work in space, and see how
the astronauts live during their missions. An other thing you can do
is to go and have some food or visit the Space shop where you can buy
souvenirs.
When you have seen enough at the Visitor Complex you may board a bus
and take the two hour Kennedy Space Center Tour to see the launch site,
highlights include tours near Space shuttle launch pads A and B, the
massive Vehicle Assembly building, and an authentic 125 meter long Saturn
V moon rocket, housed in the new Apollo/Saturn V Center, which is a
tribute to America�s historic achievement of landning a man on the moon
and return him safely to earth.
The tour of the Apollo/Saturn V Center begins with a multimedia review
of NASA�s first launch of a Saturn V rocket with astronauts aboard,
which occurred in the Apollo 8 mission. Then visitors enter the Saturn
V rocket plaza, where you can walk around and under the enormous moon
rocket. There are also a plenty of other exhibits to see during the
walk through the plaza.
OPF (Orbiter Processing Facility):
The Orbiter Processing Facility is one of many facilities within the
KSC. the OPF is more sophisticated and filled with more equipment than
any airplane hangar. This is the hangar where technicians can check
every inch of the winged plane between missions. A shuttle will spend
somewhere between two and three months inside the OPF before it�s declared
ready for launch and then moved to the Vehicle Assembly Building which
is another of the many facilities within KSC.
VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building):
Standing 174 meters tall and enclosing a volume of 3 664 833 cubic meters
the VAB is the third largest building in the world and can be seen on
the horizon for miles around. In the VAB the space plane is stacked
on the external tank with it�s two booster rockets, and it�s also checked
for the last time.
Crawler Transporter:
About half the size of a soccer field and weighing more than 2727 tons,
this is one of the world�s largest moving vehicles and KSC has two of
them. It�s the Crawler�s job to move an assembled space shuttle from
the VAB out to the launch pad. The normal speed of a Crawler Transporter
is about 1 mph while transporting the shuttle. When empty the crawler
can reach a top speed of 2 mph.
Lift-off:
On the launch day the orange-coloured external tank is loaded with hydrogen
and oxygen to power the three main engines of the space shuttle during
the climb.
The two solid booster rockets that is stacked to the external tank
will help the vehicle during the 8.5 minute climb up to orbit with enormous
power.
For every shuttle launch the two solid rocket boosters recovery ships
steam out to see to recover the spent booster rockets and tow them back
to hangar. There the 50 meter long motors are inspected, cleaned and
refurbished for future missions.
The Shuttle Landing Facility:
After the mission it�s time to land the shuttle orbiter on the runway,
which is so long and wide it can be seen from space. The numbers speak
for themselves: 4572 meters long, 92 meters wide and an average of 41
cm thick. That makes the Shuttle Landing Facility one of the longest
and widest runways in the world. The shuttle orbiters drop at an angle
20 times steeper than a commercial airliner. Some astronauts liken it
to flying a falling brick, while others just call it a "controlled crash".
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Kennedy Space Center 