Eric
All About Rockets

The first thing we saw at Kennedy Space Center was the VAB (Vehicle Assembly Building). This building is 500 feet tall and is the second largest building, by volume, in the world. It can hold two shuttles at one time. The United States flag, painted on the side of the building is huge. The stars are six feet tall and the stripes are big enough for a bus to drive on. The doors on the VAB weigh 45 tons. We learned about the Saturn V rocket. It has three stages. One stage has five engines and burns in two and a half minutes. Stage Two has three rocket engines and they burn in four and a half minutes. Stage Three has one rocket and it gets the astronauts in the position to get close to the moon. The rest of the rocket is the command module, the lunar excursion module and the re-entry capsule.

We went into a room that was a mock-up of Mission Control for the Apollo 8 launch. They simulated three minutes and 49 seconds of the launch. When the rocket "launched" the windows rattled and the room shook. I really thought a rocket was being launched.

After that, we went to the Rocket Garden. We found out the height, width, name and the companies that made the rockets. The rockets displayed were actual rockets that took Americans to space. The names of the rockets are Atlas, Titan 2, Mercury Redstone and Saturn 1B. They had the actual gantry walkway that astronauts including Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrain and Michael Collins used to enter the crew compartment of the Saturn V rocket as the first humans to stand on the moon.

At the end of the day we watched an Imax film called, "The Dream is Alive." It was about all the training you have to go through to be in the shuttle. One training they showed in the film is in a big swimming pool. You have to dive under water, wearing your space suit, and do simulations of repairing things on the shuttle. I had a great time and I learned a lot about rockets.