I was very excited to finally be able to visit Kennedy Space Center (KSC) here in Cape Canaveral! I’ve always had a genuine interest in outer space therefore it was a really cool experience for me. Although I didn’t walk out of here wanting to be an astronaut, I gained a lot of knowledge and insight into this field. Here’s what I thought about this amazing place!

We arrived mid-morning at the KSC Visitor Complex. The drive over to KSC was beautiful, especially going out over the water near Cape Canaveral. My grandparents had been here before, but it was my first time so I had some exploring to do. We started out going into the Mars Exhibit. We listened to a speaker on what NASA hopes to do with technology over there in the future. After our morning was spent in there along with wandering around the rocket garden, we decided to head over to the bus tour. The final destination for this tour was the other part of the KSC, located a little farther north than the Visitor Complex.

I really enjoyed this tour, it was about an hour and we had cool informational videos playing as we drove around. You get to see the launch pads for the rockets, the Vehicle Assembly Building, and the “crawler” which is the giant machine they use to get the rockets out to the launch pads. It was very enjoyable!

When you arrive at the other part of the KSC (the Apollo/Saturn V Center), you are immediately entered into a small room where they play a video. Then you enter one more room, set up like the operations room in which the countdown occurs when a rocket is about to be launched. This one of my favorite things we did. All of us visitors were able to experience and literally “feel” what is like when they launch a rocket. The windows shake because of the nearby rocket, and the noise is incredibly loud! It was a great way to have people enter into this part of the center.

The Apollo/Saturn V Center is a giant hanger with many small exhibits inside, as well as a full theater where they played some videos every half an hour or so. But the main thing when you walk in is the rocket hanging up top. It was really cool, and also really big! Hanging from the top of the hanger were also badges with all of the Apollo missions numbered on them.

Before we explored this area, we were all hungry and it was way past our normal lunch time. So we ate at the Moon Rock Cafe right inside. I loved this, as I ate my pulled pork sandwich (actually pretty good for museum food), I marveled up at the gigantic rocket just above. You don’t get this view at lunch every day!

We then saw everything that was in this part of the KSC, a memorial for the Apollo 1 astronauts, a piece of moon rock, watched a film on the moon landing, and walked through other exhibits. We left the Apollo/Saturn V Center and hopped on a bus back to the Visitor Complex. This bus ride back was significantly shorter than the one hour ride going out.

Once back at the main KSC Visitor Complex, we headed over to the Space Shuttle Atlantis. Once again, we entered into a big room and watched a couple of short clips on the process of designing and testing the Atlantis. And then… they lifted up the screen and revealed the actual space shuttle! It was huge! I was very impressed with how they presented everything here at KSC, from the tour and exhibits, to the interactive experiences. The whole center is very well developed, and intriguing for people of all ages. I would highly recommend making a trip out here, ,even if you know nothing about NASA and the space program! It is about a 1 hour drive from Orlando.

After we explored all there was inside the Atlantis building, I made my stop inside NASA Central (the gift shop). From here we went and saw a 40 minute movie in the IMAX theater. It was 3D, so that was very cool.

And that was our day! We filled it to the brim, and I can’t wait to come back some day to see what all is new.