Keith
My Kennedy Space Center Tour

When I was at Kennedy Space Center I saw the VAB. For people who donÕt know, that means Vehicle Assembly Building. The VAB can hold two shuttles at once. The doors are nearly 500 feet tall. Each door weighs 32 tons. The crane inside, that lifts the shuttle on to the crawler, weighs 300 tons. They painted an American flag on the outside of the VAB. The stripes are the width of a highway lane and the stars are 6 feet across. The blue field with the stars is the size of a football field. I found out that the building is about 40 years old.

I learned about the space shuttle itself. There are four shuttles in the rotation. Today it was very foggy.

Our teacher told us that if a launch were scheduled for today it would have been cancelled. It would be cancelled because; to launch or land the shuttle you must have at least 50% clear visibility.

The shuttle has two SRBs to help it launch. SRBs are Solid Rocket Boosters. After they use all their fuel, they fall away from the shuttle and go into the Atlantic Ocean. A boat picks up the SRBs and they are reused for other flights.

Our bus driver passed by the crawler. He told us it weighs six million pounds. One of the crawlerÕs treads weighs about one ton. The rocks they have on the crawler track have to be replaced once a year because the crawler taking the shuttle to the launch pad and then returning to the VAB crushes them.

Next, we headed to the Saturn V Building. We watched an information video about the Saturn V and then we went into a room with a mock up of a real control room with all the real consoles that were used to launch the Apollo 8 rocket.

While we were in that room they simulated a launch. The room shook a lot. I got to see an actual Saturn V rocket. Man, that thing is huge! There are four stages to the rocket. The rocketÕs first stage reaches 5,000 mph. The Saturn V is 363 feet long. Two thirds of the rocket is used for carrying the fuel. The astronauts sit in a little capsule at the very top of the rocket.

After lunch, we went to the International Space Station Processing Plant. They were building two modules for the Space Station. They asked us not to use flash photography because the flash might mess up the building process.

Last, but not least, we went to Rick SearfossÕ presentation. This astronaut mainly spoke about what space was like and what it takes to get there. He answered many peopleÕs questions. It was a very interesting and informative day.