Space Shuttle Atlantis opens at Kennedy Space Center

On June 29th I had the pleasure of having a day to spend at the Kennedy Space Center. I'd signed up for their Mega Tour which is a bus tour of KSC that stops at the Vehicle Assembly Building and lets everyone go inside for a short tour, then to the Launch Pad 39A for some very up close views, and then drops everyone off at the Saturn V display.

Coincidentally this was also the day that their Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit had it's grand opening. Right before my bus tour started I watched a few minutes of speeches by folks I didn't know because I missed the introductions. The crowd was fairly large and I was far enough back I couldn't see very well anyway so I went to the gift shop to buy a hat. The sun was super hot that day and I forgot to bring one.

In front of the building the Atlantis is in there is a (I assume) actual size stack of the SRBs and ET, although I'm 99% sure they're only mock ups, not actual boosters and tank.



As I was leaving the gift shop I heard the countdown to the ribbon cutting, and right at zero a lot of smoke started pouring out of the bottom of the SRBs along with a lot of rumbling sound from the speakers set up for the opening. My guess is that some marketing geniuses thought it would be a cool effect. But to me, all I could think was, "That looks sort of stupid having the stack fire up without a shuttle on it".

It was time for me to get on my bus for the tour so I didn't stand in what would I'm sure be a very long line to enter the exhibit that morning. After I finished looking at the Saturn V exhibit I came back and got to see the shuttle. It was VERY impressive!! I'd already seen the Discovery on display near Dulles airport in DC, but you can get a lot closer to the Atlantis and there are tons of Shuttle related things all around in the building.

To get into see the Shuttle Discovery at DC you only have to pay to park, and walk right into the hanger it's sitting in with tons of other awesome planes, rockets, and space related stuff.

To see the Shuttle Atlantis you have to pay the KSC Visitor entrance fee (which I think is about $50) but the exhibit building is totally dedicated to the shuttle. You start by walking up a long ramp while you're in line to get into a room that can fit about 40 people - where you stand and watch a 5 minute film about the engineers who designed the shuttle. Except it's not a documentary of the actual people, it's a made up movie using actors and it's not very believable. Then you're let into another small room where you see another 5 minute video on a screen surrounding the room showing launches and other footage, and some computer generated graphics of the shuttle zooming around.

The final image is the shuttle coming towards you at an angle where it freezes, and the screen becomes transparent and you see the actual shuttle behind it in the same position. That part was REALLY well done. The screen raises up and you can walk out into the main hall.

The shuttle is mounted at an angle with it's doors opened and the arm extended. A walkway lets you get right up next to the doors with the arm over your head.



Unlike the Discovery you can see inside the bay and look at all the stuff in there.



Here's a view from further back showing some people on the walkway.



You can go down another level and walk around to see the underside completely. Again, unlike the Discovery where it was on the ground and you couldn't see the bottom very well.



You could get so close! I took about 20 or 30 pictures in there, so these are just a few to be able to show everyone here. This is my favorite of the bunch.

I only had a limited time to be in the exhibit, but I'm sure I could have spent at least a half day in there looking at all the peripheral displays. For instance, there was a really cool cut away model of a Solid Rocket Booster.



The solid fuel is hollow to start, which gives a higher surface area that burns to produce the thrust. Unlike our smaller solid rockets that burn from the bottom up these burn from the inside out.




The flash nearly ruined this image, which shows the upper end.



But there were LOTS of other displays and I ran out of time and couldn't even look at them. I had to race to the airport to go home.

I'll post more pictures of the rest of the tour later. But I thought everyone would like to hear about the shuttle display and know that it's now opened.

wow what a cool experience!!! That is really awesome!!

Really odd to me to see everything in the past tense. "the SRBs could not be shut down". Guess its time to admit the era is over huh?

Very good... thanks for sharing...

later! OL JR