We left Cocoa Beach with the roof down, but had to pull over for petrol and put the roof back up as we drove towards Kennedy Space Center and an ominous looking cloud.
We spent the whole day at the Space Center. Highlights included a bus tour of the complex, including seeing the launch pads from which many NASA and now SpaceX missions have been launched. The tour dropped us at an exhibition about the Apollo missions, including a reconstruction of the Apollo 8 launch with the actual equipment from the launch control room.
Back on the main site, we went to talk by one of the scientists involved in the Parker Solar Probe that was meant to launch last night. He gave an interesting talk about the aims of the mission (to study the sun up close) and some of the science behind it.
There was also a big exhibit about the Space Shuttle. You could see the Atlantis shuttle displayed in the hall, and learn about the development of the Shuttle programme, which opened up lots of new possibilities as this would be the first reusable space craft, that would launch like a rocket, but land back on Earth like a plane. We also went on a Shuttle launch simulator, where you could feel the forces the astronauts would undergo as the Shuttle launched. This was really good, and Tom’s highlight.
We drove on to our penultimate stop, Orlando. We checked in, then had a trip through the Saturday night traffic to Disney Springs to collect our tickets for the next 2 days. We had few hours sleep then were back up at 3 again to watch the solar probe launch. It was second time lucky, and we could see the rocket going up in the very far distance. Not as good as it would have mfrom Cocoa Beach, but pretty cool all the same.