Kennedy Space Center: Out of this World During the Pandemic

Here's something to take your mind off the COVID pandemic.

Who was the first person to travel in space? (Answer: Yuri Gagarin, the Soviet who circled the earth in 1961).

Who was the first person to walk on the moon? (Answer: Neil Armstrong, American from the three-man Apollo 11 in 1969).

I knew those answers cold, as would everybody who lived in America through the 1960s. The pivotal space race moments are etched into our personal history.

I visited the Kennedy Space Center on Cape Canaveral, Florida and got a full-on dose of nostalgia and admiration for America's astounding achievement. Although the Kennedy Space Center (or "KSC" as it's known), is operational as a launch facility, it has also been developed as a theme park, inviting visitors to experience space exploration. Much of the visitor center mimics a Disney theme park. 

Rocket Garden

One of the Gift Shops

There are IMAX movies, virtual reality booths and a children's planet playroom. And crummy food with sugary sodas.

But, some of the exhibits grabbed my attention. The first Dragon spacecraft that shuttled cargo and people to the international space station is on display. You can see burn marks and wear and tear on its skin from the trips to and from the earth. 

In my opinion, the real deal, the real reason to invest a day of your life is to visit the Apollo/Saturn V center. To achieve that requires making it the first order of business after passing through the theme park turnstile and security check. A quick glance at a map will indicate the location of kiosks for scheduling reservations on the buses to the launch area. Securing bus seats for as early as possible locks in the right to see real rockets. The 20-minute ride transports you across the vast property and reveals how space exploration is evolving today. 

NASA partners with private companies to send crews and equipment to support space stations and satellites. The only way a tourist can see beyond the theme park is by riding the bus. 

In fact, the passenger depot is festooned with logos of SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk. He has been quoted as saying, "I can't think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars."

We passed the Vehicle Assembly Building (known as the "VAB"). It was built to assemble the Apollo/Saturn V rocket for the moon launch in 1969. The high bay in the center allows the rockets to be stacked vertically and then rolled out to the launch pad. Some fun facts: The doors are the largest in the world. They are 456 feet high and take 45 minutes to close. The American flag painted on the side is the largest in the world, measuring 209 feet tall and 110 feet wide. 

The Vehicle Assembly Building ("VAB")

Our bus passed by Blue Origin, the company established by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. His vision is to enable "a future where millions of people are living and working in space for the benefit of Earth."

When we disembarked at the Apollo/Saturn V Center, we had to wait outside a closed gate for about seven minutes to allow the crowd inside to move through. Standing there and staring at the doors turned out to be fun. The loudspeaker cranked out one 1960s hit after another. Think: "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" by The Animals. You can't stand there without swaying to the music, smiling and if you know the words, singing along. A ticker tape-type feed above the portal ran a series of '60s fun facts. 

Time Magazine named three Apollo astronauts as Man of the Year in 1968. They were Frank Borman, James Lovell and William Anders. They were the first humans to witness and photograph an Earthrise. Their mission was the second crewed spaceflight flown in the Apollo program. (Apollo 7 was manned but it stayed in Earth's orbit). After a steady flow of 1960s facts like the cost of the first Big Mac in 1968 (49 cents) and the most popular names for newborns (Michael and Lisa), the gates opened. 

The Control Center for Apollo 8 is preserved intact in a theater where they showed videos of the launch and television broadcasts. It draws goosebumps. While you take in the vista of mission control desks, you see President Kennedy on a giant screen saying, "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard because...that challenge is one that we...intend to win."

A real rocket hangs horizontally from the ceiling. It was not sent into space because in 1972, NASA shut down the Apollo program before it could be launched. That was not long after Apollo 13's mission ("Houston, we have a problem") was aborted but returned safely to earth. 

I sized up my visit feeling that the KSC did a great job of stirring pride and patriotism while acknowledging failures. For me, the thrill was in the last images I recalled. In 1969, people all over the world gathered around their television sets cheering to the real-time broadcast of humans walking on the moon. Many onlookers, no matter where in the world, were waving American flags. 

The future of space travel is uncharted and thrilling, but for me, having lived through the first amazing breakthrough and revisiting it at KSC was pretty awesome. 

Tee-shirt for sale in the KSC gift shop

Fingers Crossing at Amtrak

There is only one place in the entire United States where you can load your automobile onto an Amtrak train and accompany it nonstop to Florida. The embarkation point is Lorton, Virginia. I happened to find myself 3 miles away from the station when I happened to be stranded, unable to drive on the icy highways. How perfect is it to be steps away from a solution out of the predicament? How perfect would it be to tuck our car into the train, settle ourselves into passenger seats and snooze on the overnight voyage?

 The hitch? Sold out. So, here we sit in the parking lot, hoping to go standby. Hoping that the mob in the waiting room falls short of the capacity. Fingers crossed.

Epilogue:

Snap. Sadly, the train was full. We were not among those lucky people who Amtrak welcomed aboard.

Ice is a Trip Breaker

A record storm and perilous pile-ups is messing with our plans to traverse the east coast in three days. We left Rhode Island’s chilly climate yesterday morning, aiming to catch up with the sun in Florida. We were oblivious to the weather conditions ahead. Our car chewed up the miles as we listened to an outstanding audiobook, The Code Breaker by Walter Isaacson. As we passed through New Haven, Stamford, New York, Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore, the travel time flew because our attention was riveted to the story of Jennifer Doudna and the history of gene editing. I just love a great science story. But then, my phone dinged with a text from a friend, “OMG, Look south into Virginia. Could be ugly.” I paused the audiobook and googled. Yep, snow was predicted for where we were headed. I switched to resume playing. We traversed the Washington, DC beltway and exited into northern Virginia. Flurries smeared the windshield, spurring my husband to spritz and wipe the windshield continuously. The sun lowered in the sky, radiating a blinding glare across the icy roadway, causing fellow travelers to slow down and a few to skid off the road. We agreed that our intended overnight stop destination of Richmond remained a good plan. At 90 miles away, it still made sense to press forward. Until it didn’t. Traffic slowed to a stop. We were sandwiched in between tractor trailers. In 30 minutes, we moved forward by 3 miles. Even with the distraction of a great book to listen to, the message was not lost on us that this was not a good situation. Each time google maps refreshed, our goal got further away. The Google Maps lady told us that there were delays of more than 5 hours. We inched forward and decided to exit from I-95 as soon as we could. We did; at Woodbridge, Virginia. Thanks to the Google Maps lady’s directions, we found a Quality Inn not far from the exit ramp. As we got off I-95, we noticed that the entrance to I-95 heading north was closed. True, we weren’t going north, but it could just as easily have been our side of the road that was closed. In fact, not long after we got off, the southbound lanes of I-95 were closed, stranding the cars that were still on the road. My husband and I were not the only people who bailed out. We got our key to a room and then went right out to search for something to eat for dinner. The shopping center a half-mile away had a few restaurants. Except: the Greek pizza place was closed, the Mi Casa/Su Casa Mexican restaurant was closed and the Chinese restaurant had a 2-hour wait for takeout (where people sat waiting for their orders). The last resort was the Food Lion grocery store with a paper notice taped to the door saying that they were closing soon. We grabbed the last two salads from the deli case and a bottle of Merlot and slid across the black-iced parking lot back to our car. We had a quality picnic dinner in our Quality room.

This morning, we lined up to take advantage of the free breakfast choice of either (and only either) Hostess Danish or Jimmy Dean Sausage Sandwich. Proof that we have arrived into the south. We’re waiting for the sun to melt the ice, for the state highway people to reopen I-95, and to resume listening to The Code Breaker’s gripping story about gene editing.