It was an hour's easy drive from our accommodation to the Kennedy Space Centre at Merritt Island, Florida. We wanted to arrive early as we had limited time before we needed to be in Sanford to catch the Amtrak Auto Train.
Tickets were USD50 each and included a guided bus tour to the Apollo/Saturn V Centre. Parking and ticket purchase were easy, but would quickly attract long lines as the day goes on.
We enjoyed walking through the Rocket Garden of 100 foot space craft and watched people crawl into the replica capsule from the Apollo.
The bus tours leave every 15 minutes. The driver was very informative and funny, and showed videos of the history and plans for the future of the space program. He drove us around the living complex. They're doing a lot of renovating/rebuilding to modernize the Cold War era site, and are now self sustainable thanks to solar power and theories water and treatment plants.
The Centre sits in a nature reserve and there are many animals on the endangered list that call Kennedy home. We saw a manatee (like a dugong), three alligators (all alive this time) and a turtle, along with many birds. Bald eagles nest here from September to May - one nest was the size of a king bed!
The photo above shows a 'crawler', built in the 1960s to transport the rockets from the Vehicle Assembly Building (below) to the launch platforms. Each of the four tracks has 57 'shoes' and each shoe weighs 900kg!
The Vehicle Assembly Building is one of the largest buildings in the world by volume. The roof is 8 acres and the flag is 21 stories high! It's difficult to depict how big it is in a photo.
I really enjoyed the bus tour - it took about an hour and a half, including the videos at the Saturn V Centre. Note: sit on the right hand side of the bus (left as you walk in). You'll get the best view of the sights. There are plenty of other things to do including meet astronauts and see imax movies.
Saturn V rocket for Apollo 18
The Rocket Garden
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