On Saturday we packed up our bags and drove to Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.
We got a later start than we wanted, but we still got to see a lot of things. The first things that we did upon entering was–use the bathroom! Honestly, excessive bathroom usage was a constant preoccupation for us in Florida. Maybe it was because we were drinking more water because of the heat, but the kids had to go all the time, and every time one kid announced he or she needed to use the bathroom, Abe and I would make the entire family use it. We were sticklers.
After using the bathroom we went to one of the buildings Abe had checked off as a must-see, only to be greeted by a woman who who smilingly stuffing tickets into everyone’s hands and telling us to hurry to the line for the bus. We never made it back to that building and still don’t know if there was anything to see inside or if it was just the place to get bus tour tickets!
At any rate, the bus tour was excellent. We loved learning the history of NASA and some of its impressive, huge buildings. I think one of the statistics was that the base for the rockets weighed over 38 billion TONS, and that the crawlers it was on moved 35 feet per minute or something like that. How can the earth support a structure that weighs so much? Isn’t that the weight of a mountain? And Florida earth is pretty soggy, so I seriously don’t understand how it could support those structures. Apparently Nasa understands, and the buildings appear to be solidly vertical, so I guess that’s all that matters.
We ended at a place where they had reconstructed the room that launched the first rocket that landed on the moon. They had a show where you could actually hear the people talking before and during launch, and you would see the desks light up to represent which person was talking. It was very moving and I had tears in my eyes by the end of it.
We also watched another presentation in a different room about the moon landing itself. I had no idea it was such a close call! There were obstacles to Neil Armstrong’s landing that were very hard to overcome and I think he landed with less than three seconds to go before he ran out of fuel. If he were to have run out of fuel, he would not have had enough in the tank to make it back to earth. That he made it was amazing!
We ate lunch under one of the rockets that had actually made it to space. I forget which one, but it was enormous.
After lunch we took the bus back to the main visitor complex and let the kids play in the space playground. Abe and Lydia watched an iMax movie about astroids.
While Abe and Lydia were at the movie, Clarissa got stuck at the top of the crawly part of the playground, and I ended up climbing up a rope tower and rescued her. The security guards were so nice and gave us water afterward. I was really proud of Ammon and Mary, both of whom helped her a lot. I was hoping she would overcome her fear and keep crawling, so I didn’t interfere until at least twenty minutes had passed. During that time, I watched Ammon cheer Clarissa unceasingly, calling out, “Go Galissa! Go Galissa! You can do it Galissa!” Mary was also encouraging her, sitting right next to her and helping her while other kids got impatient. I was so proud of Ammon and Mary, and I kept hoping Clarissa would trust them enough to inch her way forward, but in the end it was also kind of fun climbing the rope tower to rescue her.
After that we took a bathroom break and then were prevented from re-entering the playground because a mother couldn’t find her child. The space playground is dark the the worker says kids get lost all day long. I drilled Clarissa and Ammon on my full name in case that happened to us, and when we got back in we discovered Abe and Lydia waiting for us. Abe and I watched the kids do the space slide a bunch before I realized I could catch the last iMax and sprinted there. It was about asteroids, and I am now a new convert to the cause of planetary defense. One of the obvious goals of the visitor complex seemed to be to convince the visitor that space exploration is purposeful, beautiful, and necessary, and I left relatively convinced. (Surprisingly, Abe was less so. Space-time is one of his favorite new areas of interest, so I was surprised that he wasn’t more easily converted to the NASA message.)
After the complex closed at 5pm, we drove back to Miami to our airport hotel. En route we ate dinner at the Whole Foods in Palm Beach. I realized we hadn’t drunk any Florida orange juice so found some local juice there and had everyone drink some with dinner. So yummy!
Our hotel was a Homewood Suites near the airport, and it was so yucky that I had trouble sleeping. I kept thinking about the recent condo collapse in Surfside and wondering if the building was up to code. I was super happy when the alarm rang the next morning and it was time to go.