I am excited! A year to see the Space Center

[G'th]

So, today was my birthday! (23) And because my sister is awesome, she got me an annual pass to Kennedy Space Center.

Naturally, I'm excited as all get out, because the few times I've been able to go, I was always kind of held back by people who had such frivolous things as "schedules" and "lives" so now I get to take my time and really enjoy it. And whats more, I have a year to go at it!

Tomorrow's going to be my first visit. Going to be fun

[SemiaCloud]

Kennedy is an awesome place, went up for the Spacex launch in which the incident occurred, hung out at Visitor's Center/Saturn 5 center/Gantry, and got an astronaut (Thomas Jones') autograph. It is an awesome place, hope you have a great first visit.

[LordFerret]

Very cool! There is a lot to see there... definitely requires an all day visit, and more than one at that. Enjoy!

[Yukon0009]

I....Want...To...Go....***&^*&*^&*%&%$ing airline price tag.

[CG_Kerbin]

That's awsome. It's every space nerds dream. (Hope you have a great day)

[Columbia]

Let the envy flow..

Have fun mate! Not everyone has the chance to see such an amazing landmark

[ChrisSpace]

I have been there once. Great place, certainly has a unique vibe to it.

[G'th]

I just got back from the Space Center! It was a most excellent day. Got some one on one time with not only a NASA engineer who worked on the shuttle (and Hubble), but also two astronauts who flew on Discovery and Atlantis! Think I spent three hours with Atlantis between Martin (the engineer guy. Didn't get his last name) and Don Thomas. Ran into Mike Mulland at the Saturn V center and got to have a chat with him before he went off to do book signings. This was also the first time I had ever actually met anybody who actually went to space. So that was pretty sick.

First thing I did after the park opened was to go see Atlantis again, and I was right in doing so. Martin basically gave me a mini tour (There weren't many people in the center just yet) and he pretty much converted me into a Hubble fanboy lol. Having him show me the mock-up they have and what everything did and what not was amazing. And then later on I saw the Hubble IMAX movie they have, that covered STS-31 and STS-61 as well as what all Hubble has been able to discover, and it was mind blowing. The way they set up the theatre made it as if you were sitting there in space with the astronauts as they dealt with Hubble. The scale was amazing and in most of the shots it was like I was looking at the mock-up, except better! It was just unreal.

And, on a less awesome note, I also got to witness the Columbia/Challenger memorial, and let me tell you that was not the most pleasant thing ever coming into it without knowing what all was in there. When I first went in I had just thought it was just a memorial for the astronauts with some of their personal effects. But off in a corner down the hall way (they don't even make an attempt to make you notice it. Like, the small hallway between the main one and this room wasn't even lit) were two pieces of debris from Columbia and Challenger. And when I turned that corner I literally gasped and teared up a little. I mean, I had just spent hours with Atlantis and yeah. Seeing those pieces was not pleasant.

But beyond that, it was an awesome day. I'm working on uploading the pictures I took so that'll be a bit.

[G'th]

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[Jebby2]

Amazing place, but they so ripped off KSP.

[Flymetothemun]

http://imgur.com/a/toqzJ

I hope that I'm not considered weird, but I teared up a little from the beauty of all that machinery & engineering.