The Kennedy Space Centre is set on a vast section of Cape Canaveral, which is hardly surprising since everything here in USA seems to be vast. The one thing that surprised us though was the single carriageway leading to the space centre. We’ve gotten used to the ten lane carriageways and so a standard single lane carriageway left you feeling as though the road planners had probably been in a hurry (maybe even on job-and-finish, eh Timmy!) when they built this stretch of road. The road was so straight that you could imagine the foreman having looked at the plans and then saying to himself, (irish navy accent) why the heck do they wanna take it down there Patrick, surely straight across would be quicker for everyone? Then taking a ruler or anything else with a straight edge, he remarked the plans. The road really was that straight!

After arriving and passing through the now familiar bag check and ticket turnstiles, we headed for the rocket garden. Grandma will be pleased to note this wasn’t some type of fancy salad (as that’d be roquet), but was a lovely garden with some pretty flowers and a bunch of full size replica rockets. We were able to sit in the capsules of some of them as they had a capsule nearby a few of the rockets. They were tiny, even Matty couldn’t believe that in such a vast object that the “man module” was quite so small.

We listened to quite a good talk from Fred Gregory a real life astronaut, who explained everything from a launch sequence (he was the pilot), through to using a space loo. Just in case you’re curious NASA provided latex gloves to enable the crew to apply the “pinch maneuver” ensuring bodily separation from “unwanted objects”. This made Luke and Matty both giggle as you can imagine, anyhow enough of that kind of talk. He was very interesting, I never realised from launchpad to Africa took the shuttle just 8 minutes to complete !!

We saw the space shuttle Atlantis, which was very interesting and then rode on the “launch into space” simulator ride which according to the astronauts that were featured on their queue line screens is a really realistic experience.
Following the two hours we took to look at Atlantis and read around all the exhibits (including a memorial to Challenger and Columbia), we headed for the bus tour. This took us to the launch area, which was fascinating. Seeing the massive wide roadway covered in special pebbles to reduce the chance of sparks, along which the massive gantry which travelled at an amazing, 2mph supported by four humongous caterpillar tracks was a real sight. We were shown launch pad 39, from which Apollo blasted off and the rocket assembly area, a massive one storey building that is a hundred floors high and has massive doors on the front. The space craft, rocket engines and fuel tanks were all assembled in this building. Apparently there are some of the biggest cranes in the world in that building. To underline how big the building is, the US flag on the side of the building is so vast that the blue area with the stars on it is the size of an NBA match size basketball court!!

I could bore your pants off with many more facts but not wanting you to fall asleep I’ll refrain from that.
We had an interesting day, a massive change in gear from the fast paced, white knuckle days we’ve been having at the various theme parks we’ve visited.

We rounded it all off by visiting Denny’s an American Diner. I’d seen five or six of them on our way to Busch Gardens amongst other places. I thought it’s be kind of fun to pop into one of them, the food was yummy and reasonably priced. Three adult meals, one kids meal, four refillable drinks and two puds for $50 (about £35), I thought that was about the same as the UK.