Kennedy Space Center

For the last several months, we have been immersed in history all along the East Coast. We've seen monuments of early explorers and founders, gone through historic buildings, been on re-constructed ships like the ones who carried the first English and European settlers to this new land, with all of the risks that they encountered in route. We've marvelled at their adventuresome spirit, and the work and ingenuity it took to actually settle in this new land.

But for these last couple days, we've had a completely different experience. We've marvelled at the adventuresome spirit of those who risked their lives in space exploration. And the ingenuity of the thousands and thousands of people who made it happen! The Kennedy Space Center was very fascinating. (Photo from postcard) We're glad we could take two days to go through it, and the Astronaut Hall of Fame. Great presentations on the past, present, and current missions was very impressive. And then trying to get our minds around our own galaxy, much less the billions of galaxies in the universe, is overwhelming.

We had hoped to see the space shuttle Atlantis lift off, but it was postponed until January and the astronauts sent home. (Photo of it sitting on the launch pad.) We did get to see the unmanned Atlas rocket lift off, though, with its classified payload. (See small white dot on photo.)

We saw many of the original capsules and rockets and space suits. Walking through the Rocket Garden brought back lots of memories for John, because he had worked on many unclassified Agena capsules when he worked at Lockheed in the 60's. (One of the photos is of the Agena capsule.) Some of the things he worked on were also connected to the Gemini program, which were used with the lunar launches for rendezvous operations.

The 3-D IMAX shows were terrific, giving us a real feel for landing on the moon, or working on the space station. One of the live presentations we enjoyed was of astronaut (Bill) Fabian who piloted a couple earlier missions, who share some of his experiences.

We actually know one of the astronauts -- Loren Acton. He was a member of St. Andrew's UMC in Palo Alto. He went up in the Challenger/SkyLab (the last one before it exploded) as a solar physicist, so it was extra thrilling for us to see his name posted, and to purchase a SpaceLab II patch with his name on it. (photo) We left the Kennedy Space Center proud of our country, and now the international cooperation for future space exploration.