Tag Archives: space flight

1150 Miles in Two Days and the Shuttle that Didn’t Take Off

Spaceflight is something really fascinating for me ever since childhood. So we decided to drive down to Cape Canaveral for the Space Shuttle Launch STS-119, scheduled for Wednesday, March 11th. Around 30 minutes before we arrived we saw on a highway information panel that the shuttle launch was canceled. What a bad luck!

Launch Pad 38A and the Rising Moon

Anyway, after we checked in at our motel, we drove over to the place in Titusville where we were supposed to watch the shuttle launch. We just arrived in time for an awesome moonrise! After great dinner and some walk in Titusville we headed back to our motel.

Titusville, “Historic Downtown”

Next day we spent pretty much at the Kennedy Space Center. We started our tour at the Rocket Park and got right afterwards on the bus tour to the Shuttle Launch Pads, the Saturn V Center and the ISS Assembly Buildings. We also did the shuttle launch simulator and had a look at the shuttle model at Shuttle Plaza.

Saturn V Stage 2 S-II

Late afternoon program was hanging out on Cocoa Beach. After dinner (and some Starbucks coffee) we started our way back to Atlanta. Basically we drove 1150 miles for a three-minute-thing that didn’t happen. But it was a great trip! We had fun and I am impressed by spaceflight more than ever!

Cocoa Beach

We ended up watching the Shuttle launch this evening on NASA TV.

Air and Space Museum, Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center

The last thing on my amazing journey over Christmas was to visit the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Air and Space Museum at Dulles International Airport. The reason because I wished so much to go there was that the Space Shuttle prototype Enterprise is exhibited there. NASA used this shuttle to test whether it is airworthy or not as the shuttle is optimized for space and not air operation.

Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird

Other planes exhibited there are the Concorde, the “Black Bird” and several planes from World War II.

Concorde