Kennedy Space Center Vistors Center

[JEBar]

EM's website indicated the tour tomorrow (Apr 22, 2015) will be at Cape Canaveral, FL in the Kennedy Space Center's Vistors' Center from 9:00am - 3pm .... anyone planning to attend ?

anyone have a clue where they will head next, nothing is listed ont he website

 

[DWR]

EM's website indicated the tour tomorrow (Apr 22, 2015) will be at Cape Canaveral, FL in the Kennedy Space Center's Vistors' Center from 9:00am - 3pm .... anyone planning to attend ?

anyone have a clue where they will head next, nothing is listed ont he website

JEBar, I went to the Kennedy Space Center's Vistors' Center a few years ago. Thought it would be great, but was very disappointed. When walking in, you see lots of nice buildings, and a well maintained park. Once inside, you become VERY disappointed in a short amount of time. Huge buildings, nice park, with nothing more in them, than what FL used to look like before a concrete launch pad was placed there. I had such high expectations going in, but the most exciting part was watching people work on the International Space Station modules. Really?.....Watching govt. employees work? One of the most wasted days of my life! After all, name one thing the govt. does well, and I can tell you, theme parks are no exception.

 

[Bert]

Go to the one outside of Houston! The Family really enjoyed that one!

 

[JEBar]

we visited there back in '04 and really enjoyed it .... hate to hear that it seems to have deteriorated

I do find it a bit odd that nothing has been listed showing where the tour will go from there

 

[JEBar]

Go to the one outside of Houston! The Family really enjoyed that one!

we've been to that one as well and enjoyed the visit .... would be happy to go back

 

[goofyone]

Over the last decade the Kennedy Space Center has definitely not been what it once was thanks to NASA's budgets being cut over the years along with the winding down of the Space Shuttle program and the cancellation of the Constellation program which was supposed to be NASA's successor program. The KSC along with the local economy have suffered greatly as thousands of well paying jobs have been lost over the last decade and many NASA operations once based in Florida have been consolidated to NASA's research and training hub at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The good news is this all now appears to be in the past as right now there is actually a lot of upgrade and refurbishment work going on at the KSC with much more activity to come over the next few years. NASA is now leasing much of the current KSC infrastructure to private companies who are creating new jobs and investing in upgrading the KSC to a modern space flight facility.

Launch pad 39B, the Vehicle Assembly Building, and Crawlerway, which have been in use since the Apollo missions, are all currently being refurbished and readied for launches of the government-owned Space Launch System which is supposed to begin in 2017.

United Launch Alliance currently uses launch pads 37 and 41 for launching Delta and Atlas rockets respectively. In December ULA launched the first test flight of the new Orion human rated space capsule for the SLS system from pad 37. ULA is also currently upgrading launch pad 41 for human rated flights of the CST-100 capsule destined to take crews to the International Space Station with launches beginning in 2017.

SpaceX is currently using Launch Pad 40 to launch Falcon rockets with Dragon capsules which are currently resupplying the international space station. SpaceX have also leased former Apollo and Space Shuttle pad 39A which is currently being upgraded be used primarily to launch their larger Falcon Heavy rockets along with their human space flight missions to the international space station which are scheduled to begin in 2017.

 

[Jim H]

Over the last decade the Kennedy Space Center has definitely not been what it once was thanks to NASA's budgets being cut over the years along with the winding down of the Space Shuttle program and the cancellation of the Constellation program which was supposed to be NASA's successor program. The KSC along with the local economy have suffered greatly as thousands of well paying jobs have been lost over the last decade and many NASA operations once based in Florida have been consolidated to NASA's research and training hub at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The good news is this all now appears to be in the past as right now there is actually a lot of upgrade and refurbishment work going on at the KSC with much more activity to come over the next few years. NASA is now leasing much of the current KSC infrastructure to private companies who are creating new jobs and investing in upgrading the KSC to a modern space flight facility.

Launch pad 39B, the Vehicle Assembly Building, and Crawlerway, which have been in use since the Apollo missions, are all currently being refurbished and readied for launches of the government-owned Space Launch System which is supposed to begin in 2017.

United Launch Alliance currently uses launch pads 37 and 41 for launching Delta and Atlas rockets respectively. In December ULA launched the first test flight of the new Orion human rated space capsule for the SLS system from pad 37. ULA is also currently upgrading launch pad 41 for human rated flights of the CST-100 capsule destined to take crews to the International Space Station with launches beginning in 2017.

SpaceX is currently using Launch Pad 40 to launch Falcon rockets with Dragon capsules which are currently resupplying the international space station. SpaceX have also leased former Apollo and Space Shuttle pad 39A which is currently being upgraded be used primarily to launch their larger Falcon Heavy rockets along with their human space flight missions to the international space station which are scheduled to begin in 2017.

We have a great new and nearly unused Space Port here in southern New Mexico. It is used by SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. New Mexico Tech just launched a rocket this past week. Another of those projects that was built with the theory that "if you build it they will come'. Unfortunately that hasn't happened yet. Would make a great venue for drag racing and home for a new NASCAR track.

 

[goofyone]

We have a great new and nearly unused Space Port here in southern New Mexico. It is used by SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. New Mexico Tech just launched a rocket this past week. Another of those projects that was built with the theory that "if you build it they will come'. Unfortunately that hasn't happened yet. Would make a great venue for drag racing and home for a new NASCAR track.

Spaceport America is a beautiful facility which unfortunately has not been used much and will likely end up wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayers dollars. The issue with this spaceport was not actually the facility but that the New Mexico legislature took until 2013, after over five years of delays, to pass a liability law that protects space vehicle manufacturers and part suppliers from legal liability as this should liability is already supposed to be covered via FAA launch insurance mandates. This failure to pass that bill caused several of the new private space firms to find other states to operate from even if it meant building their own facilities. One example is SpaceX who signed on in 2013 right after that bill became law however by then they only needed it for their high altitude tests as during the delay they established their own research and development testing facility in northern Texas instead. Another company which made the same decision about creating their own facility in northern Texas instead of at Spaceport America was Blue Origin.

The really sad part is that the facility could have been very successful as it combines modern state of the art facilities with one of the few places in the continental USA where unrestricted high altitude rocket testing is allowed. The location was chosen specifically because it is adjacent to the White Sands Missile Range which is where the first Atomic bomb was detonated and is still used by the federal government for all kinds of testing including high altitude rocket launches.

 

[wjdom]

EM's website indicated the tour tomorrow (Apr 22, 2015) will be at Cape Canaveral, FL in the Kennedy Space Center's Vistors' Center from 9:00am - 3pm .... anyone planning to attend ?

anyone have a clue where they will head next, nothing is listed ont he website

Since were are talking "space" I ran across this commercial, thought everyone would enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9WoM2bHfr48#t=0

 

[JEBar]

Since were are talking "space" I ran across this commercial, thought everyone would enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/9WoM2bHfr48#t=0

weirdly interesting ....