Kennedy Space Center – 14-Feb-1998

I am back again for another innings of narrating my experiences over the last weekend (14 and 15th Feb 1998). Keeping in view my current project duration upto April, I decided to leave no stone unturned, with regard to the various tourist places in and around Orlando. My uncle’s suggestion of visiting the Kennedy Space Centre (KSC) and Disney World’s Epcot Center over the weekend, dovetailed beautifully with my plans. The weather department’s prediction of a wonderful weekend gave us hopes of welcome relief from the incessant rains tormenting the city for the last couple of months.

Me, my roommate and my uncle’s family had planned to leave for Kennedy Space Center (KSC) at 8.30am on Saturday. But the addition of three more members to our trip delayed our start by an hour, and we could leave only by 9.45am in two cars. KSC is about 40 miles from Orlando and we reached the KSC visitor’s complex at about 10.45am. There was a cold breeze when we stepped out, in spite of a clear blue sky. We bought crew passes at the ticket counter and then, proceeded to the nearest eat-out to have a quick breakfast. It was 11.45am when we were ready to visit KSC. KSC had buses taking us out to various places of interest around the sprawling area. The first place on our agenda was the LC39 Observation Gantry. We could only arrive at a vague definition of what it could mean…looking at the extensive usage of technical jargon. All our speculation led to one thing in common – that the place we were about to visit would be some sort of observation tower to see the shuttle launch-pad. An audio commentary in the bus,during the trip to the LC39 Observation Gantry, did not contribute to enlightening us about what we were to see. The wrong tape was played and the entire crowd in the bus were a disillusioned lot when we alighted. Upon landing at the site however, we were satisfied that our idea of an Observation Gantry was not entirely off the mark. The LC was an abbreviation for Launch Center. The Observation Gantry was a huge 4 story steel structure. The top of the Gantry provided excellent views of the 2 launch pads at KSC from a considerably close distance.

A brief TV show and an exhibit of the LC39 downstairs, explained the complex procedure of a shuttle launch, beginning from the construction of the shuttle parts, the payload, the assembly of the various stages and finally the much-awaited launch. It explained that the entire assembly of the shuttle would take place in a Vertical Assembly Building (VAB), the height of which was more than twice that of the Statue of Liberty and the whole assembly would be moved carefully to the launch pad by a gigantic crawler, which would move at a stately pace of 1 mile/hour, true to it’s name. To satisfy our insatiable curiosity, we also viewed the launch pad at close range through a pair of telescopes provided at the top of the Observation Gantry. A small phrase displayed near the exhibit aptly summarised the space shuttle : “What takes off like a rocket, glides like a satellite and lands like an airplane ?”

We then took the KSC bus to our next destination – The Apollo/Saturn V Center. This time, the commentary inside the bus was relevant, and provided an insight into the Apollo space programme and the Saturn V center. We were first taken to the actual Apollo rocket launch control center and we were shown a superb simulation of the tension mounting in the control center at the time counting down to a launch. An audio commentary aided with visuals on a TV screen and flickers on the control consoles, gave us the excitement of actually being a member of a launch team. The simulation of chattering of the glass roof when the rocket blasted off, gave us a wonderful feeling of the proximity to the launch pad. We were also shown a film depicting the space race between USA and the erstwhile USSR and the pivotal role played by the then US president J.F.Kennedy.

This film explained why the place was named after JFK. Next, we were directed into a huge hall where we saw the mammoth Saturn V rocket which was sent during the Apollo 8 mission. The Saturn V rocket extended for nearly 400 feet (373 feet if my memory goes right) and it proved quite a futile task to capture the entire length in one photographic frame. However, I derived consolation by clicking away the mini-prototype of the huge rocket in one single frame. The prototype illustrated the different stages of the huge rocket by crisp diagrams and explanations accompanying each stage on the prototype. It was ironical to note that despite it’s length, there was sufficient room only for three persons and not very comfortable at that. The command module which accomodated the three astronauts was at the very tip of the rocket and that would be the only other module to go into space besides the service module which provided life-support systems to the astronauts. It seemed ridiculous that the portion which went into space was hardly 20% of the full rocket size during takeoff. All along the hall, informative signboards gave us valuable insight into the various Apollo missions, before it was abandoned. Next, there was a small show to demonstrate the successful human endeavour of setting foot on the moon, achieved in Apollo 11 by the famous team lead by Neil Armstrong. It demonstrated how Neil Armstrong made a split-second decision to maneuver the Eagle’s path away from rocky terrain on the moon, to successfully land on a safe area, with a few seconds of fuel remaining. (Eagle was the vehicle designed to land on the moon) The oft-quoted “It is a small leap for man, a giant leap for mankind” completed the show.

The KSC bus next took us to the International Space Station Center (ISSC). The commentary informed us that we would be shown some parts of the ISSC being developed at KSC by the US scientists, as also other information about the ISSC. The ISSC is a joint effort by 16 countries -15 from Europe (including Russia) and the US. It is planned to put it into orbit fully by 2003 and one piece of information which made me jump, was that it would be possible to see the ISSC in space with the naked eye, once it is fully assembled. One wing of the building had prototypes of the ISSC with information on the benefits we would accrue from it. Some of the proposed uses of the ISSC included pioneering research in Microgravity, Medicine and Chemistry, specifically the study of crystals in space. The other wing housed the actual assembly of the ISSC components. We were in for a disappointment as we were informed by the guide that the main ISSC component generally put up for display, had been moved to an obscure location due to security reasons. All that remained was the technical ramble of the guide explaning the testing equipment for the ISSC. The disappointed crowd hardly comprehended the lecture and quietly moved away after the session.

The last leg of our tour was an I-Max movie. The next screening of the movie was an hour away and I decided to visit other attractions before the movie started. I walked into the Launch Status Center to see the actual hardware employed in a shuttle launch. There was an exhibit of the conical tip of a solid rocket booster recovered from the Atlantic Ocean, after a shuttle launch. Shortly afterward, a KSC guide beautifully explained the shuttle launch and landing concepts, aided by live demonstrations of the hardware used. This session proved to be the most informative, solving the enigma sorrounding a shuttle launch. A few facts we gathered were :

The fuel tank is the only non-reusable part in a shuttle

The liquid fuel is kept at 473 deg below zero to prevent it from going into a gaseous state which would then require 700 times the space occupied by the liquid fuel.

The orbiter flies at a speed of 17500 miles/hr in orbit.

For the landing, the orbiter brings together two highly explosive chemicals to retard the speed to 17300 miles/hr so that earth’s gravity pulls the orbiting shuttle back to earth.

The landing speed of the shuttle is more than twice the landing speed of a commercial jet.

The shuttle’s size can COMFORTABLY accommodate 10 astronauts with room for a working laboratory. Incidentally, the shuttle’s size is about half the Saturn V rocket used earlier. Compare the advance in technology over the years !!!

There are special ships roaming the Atlantic Ocean for recovering the solid rocket boosters for reuse.

A special light-weight tile sorrounds the Shuttle on all sides, to provide thermal insulation from the searing heat of re-entry.

The I-Max show was about a futuristic space programme, titled L5 – City in Space. This 3D film narrated the creation of a permanent city in space hundred years hence, and showed incidents that would be straight out of a science fiction novel. The film talked about the quest of a scientist’s family in the space city, to fulfill the city’s needs by tapping the resources of the ubiquitous celestial objects. In particular, there was this scene in which the scientist jumps on to a comet to divert it from it’s natural path, in order to tap it’s rich water resources for use in the space city. After further introspection of the film’s story, it looked more likely that this seemingly far-fetched idea would become a distinct reality a century from now, if the pace of the present technological achievements is any indication.

We concluded our day at KSC after the I-Max show and reached home at about 8pm. I sign off on an optimistic note by wishing that the sci-fi stories of today become the realities of tomorrow, and all this be achieved with an intent of goodwill & the betterment of mankind !