“For the eyes of the world now look into space, to the moon and to the planets beyond, and we have vowed that we shall not see it governed by a hostile flag of conquest, but by a banner of freedom and peace,” John F Kennedy

I’ve been wanting to visit Kennedy space center for years now. My mom said we went when I was a kid but I don’t remember. I finally got to go in May after a weekend spent at Disney. I was always pretty fascinated with outer space and all its splendor. When we got our first computer it wasn’t just AOL and playing solitaire to me. I was able to look up photos of the solar system and star constellations and just couldn’t believe that was all out there somewhere. So being able to see the actual rockets and space ships that went out there was absolutely insane. The arts took over as I go older and cooking became my passion but I never forgot about how space made me feel.

They have the space shuttle Atlantis on display in its own building with tons things to do and see like astronaut training simulators, memorial honoring the astronauts and a shuttle launch.

The space shuttle Atlantis has been transporting astronauts to space and back for thirty years. Its maiden flight was October 3 – 7, 1985. By the end of its final mission, Atlantis had orbited the Earth a total of 4,848 times, traveling nearly 126,000,000 mi (203,000,000 km) or more than 525 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon. Atlantis landed for the final time at the Kennedy Space Center on July 21, 2011.

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden announced the decision to display Atlantis at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex at an employee event held in April 2011 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the first shuttle flight:

“First, here at the Kennedy Space Center where every shuttle mission and so many other historic human space flights have originated, we’ll showcase my old friend, Atlantis.”

The bus tour was really amazing, and our tour guide was great! It was overwhelming to be taken around these grounds to be at the same place where so many historic moment happened. Movies were based off the moments that all started here. We recommend going on this tour if you are able to. If you can’t, then see the video below and you can have the pleasure to see the full tour too. The tour guide is a little cut off in the beginning because I wasn’t sure how she felt about me recording but it turned out she was ok with it.

Our last stop was to see the Saturn V rocket. The Saturn V was an American human-rated expendable rocket used by NASA between 1967 and 1973. The three-stage liquid-fueled super heavy-lift launch vehicle was developed to support the Apollo program for human exploration of the Moon and was later used to launch Skylab, the first American space station. The Saturn V was launched 13 times from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida with no loss of crew or payload.

A total of 24 astronauts were launched to the Moon, three of them twice, in the four years spanning December 1968 through December 1972.

We would have stayed longer because there were so many other things to do there, like meeting an astronaut, but after a weekend at Disney we were just to tired. I can’t wait to go back. It truly is a great place to visit.

See you on our next adventure!