Today was minimal riding and maximum sightseeing. Total mileage for the day was less than 40 miles, on the bike, plus who knows how many miles in Kennedy Space Center tour buses. We signed up for a tour that gets us close to the launch pads and the VAB (Very large assembly building) where they assemble everything for the launch. It was really a great day. Linda's father was career Air Force so anything to do with planes and space are interesting to her. I am of course awed by technology of all sorts. And I mean all sorts, such as why were so many fences at the Space Center curving outwards at the top and had a much finer mesh at the top? The answer is that alligators can climb fences so the curved part prevents them from going straight up and over and the finer mesh is too tight for them to get their claws into. The whole Space Center is a protected habitat for wild life and there is a lot of it there, eagles, turtles, buzzards, panthers, pigs and of course the ubiquitous alligator. The blast from the shuttle's launch engine would be deadly within a 1/2 mile radius Iif I recall correctly and deafening at greater distances. So the closest anybody is allowed to the launch pad is 3.5 miles during the launch. That means that the astronauts are suddenly left all alone when the countdown starts. Wildlife is not forgotten during the launch. There is quite a procedure for clearing the area before the launch. We also saw the gravel covered dirt roads that the crawler uses to haul the assembled shuttle and launch engines to the pad. It is about a 6 mile trip at 1 mile per hour. The crawler has 8 tracks with 57 cleats per track and each cleat is one ton in weight. The total launch weight is several million pounds. And we drove by the landing strip which is 2 miles long and paved. It must be cleared of alligators before a landing as the gators like laying on the warm pavement. The tour was full of interesting information that we were completely unaware of when we went in. This was definitely one of if not the most interesting days of our trip. I also returned my temporary GPS. The mount was broken in the box and a second unit was the same way. Too bad as it may have worked well for us.
Oggi abbiamo visitato il Kennedy Space Center, il posto dove il Space Shuttle parte terra per lo spazio e anche ritorna se il tempo e' buono. Era molto interessante. Quest'area e' anche un posto sicuro per gl'animali selvaggi. Non lo sapiamo primo d'adesso. Non e' possibile a soppravivere se si non e' piu' lontano di .5 miglia dal shuttle durante la partenza. La gente hanno metodi per mettendo via gl'animali primo della partenza. I ricenti erano costruito in maniera speciale perche' gl'alligatori possono salire sui ricenti normale. Ci sono molte cose strane si devono considerare per un viaggio nello spazio!! Era un giorno speciale per io e Linda!
The shuttle ready for the Aug 24 launch
Il shuttle pronto per la partenza 24 Agosto
Large assembly building stars are 6' from point to point
L'edifcio dove il shuttle e' preparato, i punti sono stelle sulla bandiera
sono 2 metri da punto a punto
Buzzards taking a break
Avvoltoi fanno una pausa
Linda and a mock shuttle
Linda e un shuttle modello
Snoopy, my favorite astronaut
Snoopy, il mio astronauta preferito
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