Space Stuff

So, Tuesday afternoon was quite rainy and overcast..so I opted for some mainly indoor activities. I enjoyed Kennedy Space Center last year, so I decided to have another look-see.
Since I had already seen a lot of the big stuff, I opted to look over things I hadn't seen last time in the exhibits.

I got to touch an ACTUAL moon rock! It was VERY smooth...probably from the oil on the fingers of the 10 million people who touched it before me. I doubt it was smooth when it was collected off of the moon.

Here are the left and right sides of the massive crawler-transporter used to haul the mobile launch platform, on which the space shuttle and other rockets are assembled, to the launch pad. Hopefully these 2 photo's will remain side by side on the blog. It's just HUGE! I wish someone would have been standing next to it for perspective. Here's the scoop....its 20-26 feet high (depends on if some parts are extended or retracted) and 131 feet long and 131 feet wide. It can hold a 90x90 foot square launch pad....that is the equivalent of the area inside the base lines on a major league baseball field! Hey.....we could launch the Tigers (but we'll substitute the Lions) into space! Empty, it weighs in at 5.5 MILLION pounds! I wouldn't want to get under that bad boy...but it would be highly unlikely as its top speed is 2mph, but when loaded...it only does a max of 1 mph! The tank holds 5,00 gallons of diesel fuel and it burns 1 gallon every 42 feet for an average of 125 gallons/MILE! Oh my. It moves similar to a snowmobile using 8 tracked tread belts, with each belt having 57 shoes, and each shoe is 7 & 1/2 feet ling, 1 &1/2 feet wide and weighs 2100 pounds. Now that's for EACH one! So if I laid on the ground...the shoe would still be bigger than my outline! Stay out of the way! It takes the cargo to the launch facility on a "special" road of special gravel to maintain grip, stability and speed. For some unknown reason, people like us never get to see it in motion, the do it under the cover of darkness, leaving the VAB about midnight and finishing up my early morning before KSC opens to the public. Bummer.

Here's the full crawler-transporter near the gantry. The VAB is in the background and the light colored path is the crawlers "road". Apparently it is fairly rare to actually get this close of a look at it from what I was told.

Here's a closeup of the Vehicle Assembly Building with one of its doors opened, they were preparing the next shuttle, Discovery, for its journey to the International Space Station.

Launch facility 39A is now empty after Endeavour's successful launch and waits the delivery of Discovery.

Here through the rainy sky, is Launch Complex 41. The shorter object in the center of the 4 taller towers is an Atlas 5 rocket, which has the Solar Dynamics Observatory as its payload, it is scheduled to launch tomorrow, Wednesday February 10th.