Do you remember the excitement of the 1960’s and 70’s when space travel moved from films and TV to reality? Yuri Gagarin was the first man in space and then the race between USA and Russia literally took off. There were triumphs, failures, break throughs and disasters but it was all exciting stuff. Since then, for us at least, space travel has fallen out of our top 10 of interesting things in the news. It’s been taken over by the mind-blowing internet, our own travelling, Brexit, our children and our first grandchild. Space is old news.
Not anymore. We went to Kennedy Space Centre (KSC) in Florida where all the excitement of US space travel was focused back in the 60’s and 70’s. We relived those days of orbiting the moon, landing on the moon, seeing a Saturn 5 rocket, seeing the actual Atlantis Space Shuttle and reliving the pain of the Columbia and Challenger Space Shuttle disasters. Now we are getting excited about the new stuff, the international space station, how research rockets are sent to Mars and if life really does live somewhere else in space, maybe our twin planet nearly 500 light years away, Keplar 186f.
Big enough to hold the rocket as its constructed 
Saturn V Rocket
Our day at KSC started with a tour of the site which is huge. We walked under an old Saturn V rocket which at 360ft tall was almost twice the height of the space shuttle. It got us thinking just how complicated these things are. It also got us thinking that the capsule that the astronauts traveled in was around 7ft high meaning that the astronauts were sitting on 350ft of high explosive. When the countdown gets to T-10 just how fast was their heart beating? Very scary!
KSC has got us excited again. Yes, we did some silly stuff on our day out but this is a really serious subject especially as one day our children and grandchildren might just travel in space. There were plenty of opportunities to learn about the technical aspects of space travel including live talks from the people behind the projects taking place right now as well as a session with an Astronaut who completed three missions on the space shuttle. So far, since good old Yuri captured the world’s imagination, less than 600 people have travelled in space.
In 1903 the Wright brothers made the first powered flight. In 1977, just 74 years later, Sir Freddy Laker started the first British low cost, no frills, transatlantic service. Yuri, bless him, went up in 1961, that’s 58 years ago. If the technology moves at the same speed that means anyone can go into space in less than 20 years from now. Wow, now that is mind blowing!
NASA are working positively with Elon Musk, Boeing, Jeff Bezos and Sir Richard Branson to share the cost of making space travel for the masses a reality. Branson has already stated that he plans to fly into space this year. Musk’s SpaceX company succeeded in sending a cargo capsule to the International Space Centre a couple of weeks ago using the launch pad they have leased at KSC. All these guys are putting buckets of cash into making it happen so maybe now you realise why we’ve become excited again.
Atlantis 
Cargo space 
Space toilet 
There are multiple launch pads at KSC and there’s a launch of some type almost every month which is something else that surprised us. NASA stopped the space shuttle in 2011 after around 30 years. Since then it has been using Russian rockets to get astronauts to the space station at a cost of around $80m each. That will stop as NASA is getting closer to using new rockets capable of carrying humans to get its own people not only into the space station but also back on the moon. Along with the privateers it’s looking very promising for real space travel for the masses.
While we were there we heard that there was to be a launch of a Delta IV rocket taking a military satellite into space on March 15th at around 7pm. At over 200ft tall it’s bigger than the shuttle was. Neil was excited, it must be a boy thing, so next day we quickly changed all our plans for the next week and made arrangements to come back to see the launch. We got ourselves a picnic, some beers and wine, and took it down to Cocoa Beach which we had been told would give us a great view.
Waiting on Cocoa Beach 
Countdown……
The launch was scheduled for 6.56pm and we watched the countdown clock tick down. Nothing happened. We knew the launch window would end at around 9pm so we stayed and waited as it got dark. It was late, and we were beginning to think it wouldn’t happen, but then kaboom! Wow, it was absolutely awesome (that’s an American thing) but, to be fair, it was absolutely awesome. We watched the light make an arc in the sky and then after a few seconds it disappeared into space just like The Starship Enterprise when it shot into Warp Drive. That’s another first for us and was just a fabulous moment.
Cheryl & Neil Our Story 
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