The Day that other Days Want to Be

Tuesday, March 1st –Blue Springs State Park to Cape Canaveral and back, Florida – Day 22 

Today is a Dale day. I’ve had this date on my calendar for quite a while. In fact, the whole trip might have looked very different if today’s events didn’t exist. We might have travelled directly to Florida, stayed for most of February and made it to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Instead we went to New Orleans simply so we could come back to Florida for today. We searched and searched for a place to stay simply to be in eastern central Florida for today. An 1 hr 15 min drive is as close as we could get. 

 What is today you might ask? As I frequently described to/yelled at my children, it’s ROCKET LAUNCH DAY. The day we visit the Cape of Canaveral and Kennedy Space Centre (or Center if you want to be accurate) to witness the launching of a rocket. To describe how special this is visit spaceflightnow.com and unless you are in Kazakhstan or India, Cape Canaveral is the place to be for the limited amount of launches (although there seem to be more launches now then when I was planning to visit) that occur. 

I love space. When I teach physics, my grade 12 physics students have learned through a project I created about the physics required to get to another planet. A rocket launch was high on my bucket list. 

 We got up early and jumped into the car to make the drive to Cape Canaveral. We got there a bit after the centre opened. The first exhibit we went to was Heroes and Legends. This featured several movies that introduced you to the concept of a “hero” and the past of astronauts. It looked at qualities like inspired, curious, tenacious, passionate, courageous, confident, selfless, disciplined, and principled. Each display showed memorabilia from different astronauts and you heard stories in their own words which exemplified the characteristic. One astronaut who was formerly a fighter pilot told the story of having their planes electrical go out and they had to find their way back to the ship using the bioluminescent algae that was stirred to the surface by the ships propellers. 

We jumped on a bus that took us past the launch centre; a massive one storey building where they keep the rockets before launch and then launch from the side of the building. 

The bus stopped at the Apollo/Saturn V centre. A full Saturn V rocket, the rocket that took humans to the moon, is hung in the building. We took a guided tour that described the purpose of each stage and how this gigantic machine essentially fell apart one piece at a time until the only part to return to Earth was a tiny capsule (the actualy capsule was also on display). We touched a moon rock, viewed a moon rover built from spare parts and looked at a version of the space craft that landed humans on the moon and got them off again. We also got some delightful chicken fingers from the cafeteria. 

 When we returned to the main campus of the Kennedy Space, we visited the Journey to Mars centre. The most impressive items in this building were the various rovers now on Mars (alive or dead). You could get an up close and personal look. Also, you can check out the future rovers that will eventually carry humans around Mars. 

 At this point, the kids were at or past their limit. John was on his second or third time out and the girls were getting antsy. We went to Planet Play which is probably the coolest play structure we’ve seen on our trip. It was three stories of space related play activities that the kids loved. Plenty of slides, climbers, tennis ball guns and more. For the adults, a bar. We hung around for half an hour while the kids released some energy and we charged our phones. 

 The next step was to see a real, live astronaut, Tom Jones. I don’t think Charlotte knew that astronauts were actually real people, she was in disbelief when we said we were going to meet one. Tom spent 53 days in space. Just as we were going to meet him, get an autograph and take a picture. He was whisked away to see the launch. We followed and I spent the launch with him sharing my live stream and asking him a few questions. 

The launch itself was pretty incredible. We could see the rocket as soon as it got above the tree line. A minute later we could hear the engines roar. The flash of light from the ignition of the kerosene and oxygen mixture that powered it was blinding and you had to look away. The whole thing was short lived, in under 5 minutes, a trail of exhaust was all that was left. 

 We returned to the Space Shuttle Atlantis building and got our autographs and pictures. The kids were suppose to ask questions but they were shy. We spent another hour exploring the building. They had the space shuttle hung from the ceiling (that’s the one that looks like (and landed like) an airplane and was strapped to a rocket on take off. It had its cargo bays open and a full scale Canadarm was present. Also, a model of the Hubble telescope, an engine from Atlantis and a model of the space station were there. It was pretty cool to walk around and take it all in. On our way out, we walked around the rocket garden where there were 6 or 7 different types of rockets. Some were military rockets where they replaced the nuclear warhead with a capsule for humans and others were specifically designed for space flight. It was pretty cool to walk around and read about them. 

At this point, everyone was tired, it was 6pm, Kennedy Space Center was supposed to be closed at 5pm and we had exhausted all our possibilities. We jumped back into the car for the drive home with a brief stop at Taco Bell along the way to get some pretty average burritos and tacos. 

 My overall impression was that I was hoping to read about some more of the hardcore physics of space travel. How did they design the spacecraft? What was the science behind the trajectories that the spacecraft took? That didn’t happen but I suppose I needed to realize this was a theme park version of NASA. From that perspective it didn’t disappoint. The audio-visual experience was off the charts. The historical artefacts, rockets, rovers and displays were excellent. It kept my children more entertained than I thought it would. Overall, great day.