Kennedy Space Center

14-15 November 2019

On November 13th, a bunch of students and chaperones left Baltimore on a bus trip.

On November 14th, we woke up in Daytona, central Florida.

Palm trees
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First stop was a tour of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
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I didn't take too many pictures, but this was the Student Union building
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We spent November 15th at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
 
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Astronauts just wander the grounds.
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The Saturn 1B was so big...
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...I couldn't fit it in one picture
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A Mercury crew capsule ... apparently, actual size.
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An Apollo crew capsule ... apparently, actual size.
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After about a half hour of wandering, we had a visit in one of their educational labs.
One of the tables had a bunch of space-themed Tangram puzzles.
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Another table had electronic parts
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They had "clean room" style gloves to build with Legos and things
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They had an infrared camera.
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They had a Virtual Reality spacewalk simulator.
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They called these Tinkertoys when I was a kid. These are a newer style.
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This was a gyroscope demonstration. You sit on a stool on a rotating platform...
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... spin the bicycle wheel in your hands...
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... and as you tilt the bicycle wheel, momentum spins your stool
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Probably the`biggest hit was a hand-held digital microscope.
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The kids had a fantastic time. I probably took 100 pictures just here.
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OK, the kids weren't the only ones who had tons of fun. Me and my camera in infrared
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We spent a couple of hours there, then spent the afternoon exploring the Visitor Complex.
Pictures from the Astronaut Hall of Fame, including Sally Ride, the first female astronaut;
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and Charlie Bolden, the former NASA Administrator.
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They had a huge constellation map (the Celestial Sphere) made of granite...
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... mounted on a fountain so that it turns and spins.
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Atlantis had a robotic arm used primarily to help build the International Space Station.
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The nozzle from a Space Shuttle Engine.
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A close-up of the heat-shielding tiles
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The launch countdown clock. There wasn't actually a launch, they just had the clock turned on.
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