Kennedy Space Station

If you've ever dreamed of becoming an astronaut, why not put this dream by visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Central Florida.

Just a short drive from Orlando, Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex offers a unique opportunity for you to visit areas of launch, meet an astronaut veteran see real rockets, train in space flight simulator, or even see a real rocket or shuttle launch. It is part of the great adventure that awaits you.

Shuttle Launch Experience provides an exciting journey that allows you to feel what it's like to be launch to space. Fasten your seatbelts and experience the sights, sounds and sensations of a real launch of the Space Shuttle.

After entering the heart of operations of the space shuttle for a pre-launch briefing, you will be guided by veteran Space Shuttle Commander Charlie Bolden as a step by step you through the launch sequence of Space Shuttle . Brilliant video screens spring to life like the shuttle robotic arms. anxious moments arise as sound and atmospheric lighting effects dramatize the moments before the launch of the Space Shuttle. Then, hold on and enjoy the ride!

You can also travel through time and history with a visit to NASA Rocket Garden. Dramatic lighting brings a history of NASA rockets to life, including the Redstone, Atlas and Titan rockets that first put NASA astronauts in space. You can board the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules - and have an idea of the narrowness of American astronaut pioneers endured.

Then back to the space age of today and boarded the International Space Station. This fascinating attraction gives you an overview of almost within the same plant where NASA prepares the real International Space Station - the largest, most complex structure ever to be put into orbit.

In a large observation room, you will see the actual processing bay, where each element of the Space Station is extracted, processed and prepared for his journey into orbit.

After the observation room, you can enter a full-scale mock-up of the habitation module and see how members of the space station crew to live, sleep and work.

Space Shuttle Plaza, you will find a full-scale Space Shuttle NASA replica - Explorer. See for yourself how the astronauts live and work aboard the space shuttle real. You can also find other components needed to launch space shuttles at NASA as a huge external tank and two solid booster stages.

Next to the Space Shuttle Explorer is the status of the launch center, where visitors briefings live on the current launch of NASA and spaceflight activity.

On a more somber note, the Space Mirror Memorial, designated as a national memorial by Congress and President George Bush and consecrated in 1991, honors the 24 U.S. Astronauts who gave their lives for space exploration.

The names of the fallen astronauts of the Space Shuttle Columbia Space Shuttle Challenger and Apollo 1 astronauts and the training and commercial airplane accidents are emblazoned on 42-1/2-foot-high-by-50- the monument feet wide black granite surface as if to be projected into the sky.

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