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.
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.