Eeep! Isn't this the greatest robot you've ever seen? We met this litte fella during our trip to the Kennedy Space Center and needless to say, it was a totally freaking awesome day!
I was a little anxious that I would be disappointed with our trip here as my memories from way back when are the reason I became so obsessed with space in the first place, but I couldn't have been more wrong. If anything this visit was waaaaaay better as I could actually understand (a little bit better when I was a kid at any rate!) what they were on about half the time. That's right, now I feel like I'm a genius!
There was so much to see and do which I would love to yammer on about for the next few weeks, but I don't want to bore everyone with my nerd chat! Instead, I'll give you a few of my favorite things. First up, I am OVER THE MOON that we got to see the real Atlantis Space Shuttle in the flesh. This is the ship that went into space over 30 times in various missions and was the one I watched the final landing of in total awe. It only arrived about a week or so ago (previously there was a life size model of the craft - that's now gone to Houston) so we couldn't have planned our trip more perfectly! I had no idea that I was going to see it before I came and (nerd alert!!) I almost welled up at the sight of it. It's fascinating how emotional you can get about things!
Atlantis awe aside, I love that they had lots of these spacemen outfits floating about in the roof of the main building. Unfortunately I couldn't get into one of those, but I got to do a space launch simulator which was a pretty awesome substitute instead :) It basically tilts you up on your back and throws you up into the air (though not far enough to require rocket fuel!) and it made me very very happy. I cant wait till they invent one that makes you feel weightless without going into a swimming pool.... actually, I'd totally go back to visit a NASA water park if that ever becomes an option :B Kickstarter anyone? Haha!
Oh! Check out this piece of moon rock! Isn't it a beauty? They actually only had a couple of samples for people to see, and the good bits were in these glass prisms which although looks cool, makes me sad I cannot touch them. I was really surprised that their gift shops weren't selling any meteorites or anything, because I would have spent a lot of money bringing us some rocks back home. Obviously it was for the best, but still a bit of a disappointment. I'm glad to report that was the only downside at least!
Finally, this is one of the suits worn during the epic Apollo 13 mission. Each space mission has a logo mascot created for it and they're made into patches like the one on this shirt pocket. Some of the designs are phenomenal (this has Pegasus's flying in front of the sun) and you can find them all within the museum showing the changes in design through the years. David and I are really into branding and design so were blown away by the creativity and depth behind each one. We managed to get a book with all of the different logos in it explaining what mission they were created for and the symbolism behind each element shown. We find things like that incredibly inspiring and were massively surprised when we discovered NASA was all about it too! It just goes to show that you can find inspiration anywhere if you go looking :)
All in all, the Kennedy Space Centre is totally worth seeing if you ever get the chance. I'm looking forward to going back in another 10-15 years to see what other cool new stuff they've discovered and invented ... and for some more of that incredible astronaut ice cream (which I ate an embarrassing amount of! Haha)
**Nerd Out**
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