Thoughts & Ramblings: Kennedy Space Center

Friday, November 6, 2015

Kennedy Space Center

Today, Susan scheduled a field trip for Andrew to the Kennedy Space Center. Luckily for me, this is my off Friday and I got to go along, too. NASA offers a Space Operations class for 5th - 8th graders. The class discusses the history of landing vehicles and how they've changed over the years. The two main goals for a good lander are 1) land safely and 2) be lightweight. After the presentation, the kids joined teams and were given a goody bag containing straws, mini marshmallows, tape, cardboard, a small cup, and two normal marshmallows. The challenge was to create a lander that could safely deliver the astronauts (the two normal marshmallows) to the surface from drops of 30, 60, and 90 centimeters.

Andrew was on the 'Cricket' team. They quickly got to work on their lander. After about 15 minutes, the time was up and the teams had to test their creations. The 'Cricket' was the first lander to be tested. It was 23 grams and successfully protected the astronauts. Every team was tested. Some didn't do so well - they either fell apart or dumped the astronauts onto the table. Two other teams passed all the tests. Unfortunately, 'Cricket' was 4 grams heavier than one of the others that succeeded, so it did not win the competition.

The 'Cricket' before testing

After testing, we were free to explore. We were stuck inside for 10 minutes while the rain came pouring down, then we found the nearest café and ate lunch. After lunch, we headed straight to the new Atlantis exhibit.

The new Atlantis exhibit

The Atlantis exhibit is incredible. I highly recommend that you come to Florida and see it for yourself. This is Bucket List material. We spent hours walking through and could have stayed all day.

When we finally left the Atlantis exhibit, we wondered if we could also take the bus tour. We walked over and asked someone, but she didn't know. She suggested we ask another person over by the bus. When we headed that way, we realized that the last tour was about to leave. The person near the bus hurried us towards her and guided us quickly onto the bus. So, I guess the bus tour was included, at least for us!

The bus tour was different this time. We were driven very close to the old shuttle launch pads. One is now being used by Space X. The other is being configured for the next NASA human-carrying SLS rocket; the most powerful rocket ever built. I hope I'm still living here when that ginormous firecracker is lit.