America,  Florida,  TDM,  Travel Journal,  USA

Kennedy Space Center, Hollywood Beach – Road trip in Florida #7

This article is part of a series of articles on our road trip to Florida. If you haven’t done so, read the previous notebook here.

Program

  • Day 11: Leave Orlando for the Kennedy Space Center
  • Day 12: Return the next day to attend a “rocket launch”: placing a satellite in orbit at 9am. Drive to Hollywood
  • Day 13: Swimming in Hollywood Beach. Return the car to the Miami airport. Departure for Colombia

Day 11: Kennedy Space Center

The visit of this center is very important for JB who has been talking about it for months. The day before, I ask him to organize the visit because the conquest of space does not interest me too much and we discover that the day after our visit, there is a rocket launch to put a satellite in orbit. We decide to spend not half a day as planned but 1.5 days at the Kennedy Space Center

Ticket

Parking costs $15 and the APOLLO 2-DAY DAILY ADMISSION PASS (2-day access) costs $75/person + $5 fee for online purchase.

Attention, this 2-day daily pass is only sold online. We had to buy it with our smartphone, on the spot, in front of the ticket office…

On site, here are the available options (at the machine & at the ticket office):

  • 1 day : 57$ adult, 47$ child
  • 1 year : 82$ adult, 67$ child
  • Atlantis Annual Pass (with privileges such as rocket launch access): $96 adult, $78 child
  • Explorer Annual Pass (with more astronaut meeting privileges): $146, $116 child

Travel Notebook

Being frankly not thrilled at first, I got caught up in the game. Because the center is organized like a theme park (and everyone knows that I love theme parks, proof). There’s a plan, a detailed program, IMAX spaces, simulators etc. Disney for nerds in big mdr. Here the kids don’t have Mickey’s ears, they wear the astronaut suit. ah ah!

I advise you to start first with the space dedicated to Atlantis, the reusable space shuttle. We can make a flight simulator (à la Disneyland). But before the “flight”, the different phases of the launch (Max Q, MECO…) are explained very well with a video subtitled in English: Who comes first, second, last etc. and as the principle is a bit copied/pasted for all the other launchers, it is very easy to follow the explanations of the other parts of the Center.

We also have access to a few control simulators, it looks like a video game (you have to plug something into the space station). Despite the technical prowess of JB who has a long experience in video games, he didn’t succeed. NASA’s simulator shows us that it’s not that simple, hence the astronauts’ intensive training.

atlantis command center (copy)
a copy of the Hubble telescope, not so big after all

We then spent half a day watching the different documentaries, 3D movies… that explain the conquest of the moon, the role that controllers and flight managers play in Houston (because seeing them each in front of a computer screen – doesn’t give much clue about what they do).

The movies have (or don’t have) subtitles, and I find that you have to have a good level in English – because the vocabulary is quite technical. Even though I speak very good English, I was happy to have acquired technical vocabulary when I visited Atlantis – before watching the movies (plus they throw out names of shuttles, astronauts, space programs… as if everyone should know what they’re talking about). There is a presentation by a gentleman from NASA, already well popularized, on how to take pictures of galaxies, how they plan to send a new telescope that will unfold in space, how it will take infrared pictures etc.. By visiting this center, we have like a detailed planning of the NASA projects over 2, 5, 10, 30 years…

Apollo Center

If you have less time than us, take a bus (included in the ticket price) to go around the launch pads right away. You will pass in front of the Space X launch pad and the Apollo 11 launch pad.

The place is classified as sensitive so at no time are you allowed to get off the bus, except when it drops you off at the Apollo Center, where you have an Apollo program rocket in front of your eyes. Which is so huge that I can’t fit it in a single picture.

Thanks to the 50th anniversary of the lunar conquest, this space is particularly neat : you can see a copy of the lunar module, a reconstitution of the first steps on the moon and finally… you can touch a rock of the moon ! (yes yes I really “touched” the moon) and admire another small rock coming from the moon.

This space is only accessible by bus/shuttle (free, departure every 15mn) so if you don’t have a lot of time, you should go there first I think.

lunar module
this rock comes from the Moon
a small step for mankind a big step for humanity

Finally, we return to the main space and visit the part dedicated to the conquest of the planet Mars. They explain to us that Mars was chosen to better understand the Earth. They think that Mars was like the Earth (there are traces of a big canyon), but it is a planet that has lost all its elements of life, so they would like to go there to understand what happened and avoid the same fate for the Earth. The speech targets the children present “NASA is recruiting” because at the moment, there are many things they still can’t manage to solve to send men to Mars (preserving food, fighting the effects of microgravity…) and they need a new generation of engineers, scientists and astronauts for that.

Once again, I am much less (if not at all) passionate about the conquest of space than JB but after the visit, frankly, if I were 8-9 years old, I would have dreamed of being an astronaut, I would have signed up directly for the courses (there are courses for children, expensive of course, but they teach them a lot).

Day 12 :

We start the day very early (6h). JB told you here about our experience, how we witnessed the launch of a satellite into orbit. I liked it very much, we did well to sacrifice a nice day at the beach for it – because beaches exist everywhere in the world, but rocket launches are much rarer.

We take again the road to go to Palm Beach (in Florida). It’s pretty but the beach has too much seaweed, we passed by quickly.

We still drive to Hollywood and spend the night in a small motel 5m from the beach. JB buys a fake ticket at bestonwardticket for Colombia which proves to be very useful (we need an exit ticket to show at the airport)

Day 13 :

Early morning swim in Hollywood, and here we go again to Miami. We have lunch in a steakhouse that serves an all-you-can-eat Brazilian buffet. As in Brazil, the waiters go from one table to another with huge meat skewers and cut us a piece. Salads are at will, there are plenty of dishes and even ceviche.

We have to return the car to the airport. We wash the car, fill up the gas tank, vacuum the car etc. The process to return the car to the airport is fast and efficient, in 5 minutes top time, it’s over. And here we are ready to fly to Colombia.

It is the end of our road trip in Florida, to read the complement of the travel diary on the 12th day, it is here. Thank you for following us and see you soon.

Next adventure: the discovery of the Amazonian forest

This article is part of our series of Road Trip in FloridaYou can find all other travel books here:

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *