Velcrometer
Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks
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M. Giant's Velcrometer Throwing stuff at the internet to see what sticks |
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Tuesday, October 28, 2008 Kennedy II If you're in Central Florida with a four-year-old, what could be better than a visit to Kennedy Space Center? How about another visit to Kennedy Space Center?  Tickets to visit the place aren't cheap, but I assume we'll all get a handsome return on our investment when NASA uses our admission fee in the successful mining of the gigundous diamond at the core of Jupiter. Also, you can hang onto your tickets and use them to make a return visit for free within seven days. It's like they knew M. Edium or something.  I'm not sure why he doesn't look happier in this picture. The main reason we came back was so that he could climb around inside the Shuttle mockup they have on the grounds. Either he's trying to figure out why he's never heard of the Space Shuttle Explorer (because he does know the names of all five, six if you count Enterprise), or he's upset that he's not inside it already.  Obviously this isn't a real Shuttle. Otherwise it would take out that light pole. But it was as close as we could get. In fact, we walked under it, and I lifted him above my head so he could touch the black belly tiles with his own bare hands. I wasn't tall enough to reach it myself, so that's one more experience he's had that I never have and never will, along with riding in a child safety seat and watching a Land Before Time movie on purpose.  And of course, you can actually get in it. You can't really tell because of the glare on the windows, but this is a picture of M. Edium in the pilot's seat, playing with the power locks and beeping the horn. ![It's not that WALL-E isn't happy to be inside the spaceship for once, it's just that...coff...ack...[sad beep]](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3233/2975297001_ba6e3d0e2f.jpg?v=0) There's not a lot of accessible space inside a Space Shuttle. Most of it's cargo bay, which isn't pressurized. Here, we got to walk inside a door above the outer airlock and into the forward end of the cargo bay, where we could see the crew quarters and lab space through a sheet of Plexiglas in front of us.  Behind us, a satellite, as though waiting to be deployed into orbit. In fact, I think this is the very satellite that is supposed to be making it possible for me to get cell phone coverage in my house.  After that, we went to the briefing room, where I got to enjoy three minutes of a NASA briefing, two minutes of which were burned by the very grumpy scientist yelling at everyone that Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral are not the same thing. Even if you can see the Cape's rocket launching pads from the same observation gantry that provides a view of the Shuttle's launch pads. Before the briefing, M. Edium's attention was caught by something he wanted to bring home and put in our back yard. Sure, that's a great idea. Every time we launched it I'd have to re-seed. M. Edium is already looking forward to our next trip, but unfortunately the readmission can only be used once, and within seven days, so he's out of luck. Maybe when he's an astronaut. posted by M. Giant 8:26 PM 0 comments 0 Comments:
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