Kennedy Space Center in Florida: Home of the Space Shuttle Atlantis

How are you folks? Did you miss me for few days? I miss you too (wink). Today, I am so excited to share about my latest "wandering" inside the Kennedy Space Center. As few of you knew, we live close to NASA's KSC and it's about 15 to 20 minutes away and since we have a Commander's Pass this year, we can go in and out anytime of the day in any day of the year. Right where I am is the home of Atlantis and the building behind me is the $100 million Atlantis facility.

The facility is under construction and expected to open on June 29. I hope I can visit that day and for sure, it will be an exciting event! Check out my post during the Final Launch of Atlantis. At present,the Atlantis has been wrapped in order to preserve the orbiter's natural state when it landed back to Earth during its last journey.

The Atlantis Facility is 90,000 square foot and I am sure, it will become a popular attraction in Kennedy Space Center just like the Apollo/Saturn V Center which is my favorite attraction in KSC (see above photo).

If you are having a vacation in Disney, Sea World or Universal Studios, KSC is just an hour drive from Orlando so; you should come visit KSC to experience and explore Atlantis up close and with the numerous simulators and hands-on interactive experiences I am sure, it will be an awesome trip for you and your family.

The Atlantis home is a six-story facility and located right at the Shuttle Plaza in fact, it is on the right side when you turn right heading to the parking area. I am really excited to explore this building because according to their Website, "the guests will walk underneath the full-size replica space shuttle external tank flanked by two solid rocket boosters" at the entrance to the Atlantis exhibit. I can only imagine right now!

Anyway,they also said that the outer layer of the building has orange and gold “wings” which represent the space shuttle’s reentry to Earth. I really am excited and as always, I will take some photos for you to see what's inside of the home of the Atlantis in Kennedy Space Center. Thanks for stopping by. On my next post: the Astronaut Memorial and I hope you check out my blog again. Have a blessed Holy Week!

Visiting the Kennedy Space Center

Kennedy Space Center is a major tourist destination in Central Florida and just an hour drive from Orlando. It is one of ten major NASA field centers and a launch site of the United States.

Since 1968, it has been used for every NASA human space flight. Kennedy Space Center is located on Merritt Island, Florida and would you be amazed if I tell you, we live just 15 minutes away from KSC? Yes we are. All three photos below are exhibit display at the Rocket Garden area.

The first area to explore when you visit the Kennedy Space Center / KSC is the Visitor Complex, which has different exhibits, artifacts, displays and attractions on the history and future of human as well as robotic spaceflight. All bus tours of Kennedy Space Center start from this area. It offers public tours of the center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Kennedy Space Center is a big property and is a wildlife sanctuary therefore; Bald Eagles, American alligators, wild boars, Eastern Diamondback rattlesnakes, Florida panthers and Florida manatees are just taking refuge in the area.

The complex also includes the separate Apollo/Saturn V Center, north of the VAB and the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame (photo below), six miles west near Titusville.

Check out the tag topic below this post to see more photos of Kennedy Space Center. Thanks for stopping by. I will be seeing you in Kennedy Space Center soon right?

The Journey of Space Shuttle Atlantis

I was watching the NASA channel since 6 AM today. They covered the major journey of Space Shuttle Atlantis to its new home at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. They have a long-day event celebration today and we will be there too. We decided to go there after lunch because the event will be up to 8PM. For now, I am blogging and watching the local channel of NASA.

LOOKING BACK A YEAR AGO- the picture above is the final launch of the last mission of Atlantis. The mission was STS-135 which is the last flight before the Shuttle program ended. It was a memorable event for me because the final launch happened on my birthday and I was there watching the Atlantis lift off.

The photo above was one of the photos I took during the final Atlantis launched. There were thousands of people in the area and they parked their cars on the side of the road. We are all anxious for the launch and it was a success! The last mission of Atlantis was July 8, 2011 at 16:29 PM. It came back to earth on July 21, 2011 at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in the morning.

I was listening to the speech of the astronauts and they made mention that Atlantis had orbited the Earth for 4,848 times and traveling nearly 126,000,000 mi (203,000,000 km) in space or more than 525 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon. Pretty cool huh? I am still watching TV and at present time today, Space Shuttle Atlantis made another stop at the Exploration Park. By 3 PM, it will journey again towards the Visitors Complex, its final destination.

Did you know that Atlantis was named after RV Atlantis? It is a two-mastered sailing ship that operated as the primary research vessel for the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution from 1930 to 1966. Now you know hehehe. Thanks for stopping by. More photos soon.

Crowd: Shuttle Atlantis Lift Off

July 8th was the launched for Shuttle Atlantis and it was a successful event. It lifts off from the launched pad inside Kennedy Space Center.It was a spectacle that most of the attendees were weeping with joy. It was the final launched for the shuttle program so; it was a history making event.The main road heading to Port Canaveral and Cocoa Beach were jampacked with motorists and visitors coming from all over the country.We were at the bridge area where the Kennedy Space Center is just accros the Banana River. The weather was cloudy but, it cleared up during the scheduled launch. The business in this area is booming especially when there's big events happening in the Kennedy Space center. The hotels are fully booked and restaurants are so busy with guests and diners.As far as you can see, RV's and cars were park on the side of the highway and the traffic enforcers allowed this to happen with close monitoring of the traffic.