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Years Later: Day Three: Tuesday, August 9, 2001, The Scrub
On August 9th, in remembrance of my father's birthday, todayís launch
was a private dedication to him, because if he lived, he would been very
proud of me to be here. But he would have enjoyed watching a live lift
off with me if he were alive.
After a delicious breakfast at a local restaurant, we drove back to Visitor
Complex to help Pete get situated at the Protocol Office and waited at
the Galaxy Center for our buses to the Banana River. It was a relief to
be inside the spacious, air-conditioner building as another hot humid,
sticky day starts up early in the morning.
At 2:30 p.m., we headed back to the Protocol Office where dozens of buses
arrived to pick up the guests. We boarded our buses and drove out to the
Banana River viewing area and Apollo/Saturn V Center. At this point of
my trip, my enthusiasm to see the launch was turned off like a light switch
because I haven’t woken up to the that fact this was real. But my
friends enthusiasm was more like school kids at a circus, especially Seefred
since was her life long dream to see a live manned launch.
When we arrived at the Saturn V Center, we first check out the Banana River viewing area and recognized the large LED clock which I've seen more than a dozen times on television. Not everyone was ready to sit in the sweltering heat mosquitoes infested bleachers, so we followed the crowd into the huge Apollo/Saturn V Center complex where it was nice and cool inside.
The enormous complex houses the full size Saturn V rocket and the Apollo Command Module. The 3-stage rocket is suspended from the rafters and divided in 3-stages. This helps to examine the most complicated machinery ever built by man. I've always wanted to see this rocket up close since I was a kid. I was awestruck of the massive size and complex wiring. Standing vertically, the rocket and spacecraft, tower at 363 feet and weigh 6.2 million pounds. We stood beneath the first stage rocket for a photo opportunity and ask one of the spectators, who happen to have an experiment on board the Discovery, to take a couple of snap shots. Each of the engines produces 1.5 million pounds of thrust-a total of 7.5 million pounds at lift off. I cannot imagine how this rocket was so ever successful, were perhaps, with a million parts, one part could go wrong during life-off. After 35-years, it was still incomprehensible to me, believe we truly went to the moon and back.
I asked Pete and Ron to take as many pictures of the hardware for my 2001Exhibit.Org website. Suspended above our heads beside the Saturn V, another mockup of the Lunar Lander. The Command/Service Module was located at the tip of the Saturn V and open for viewing the cockpit.
Next to the Command/Service Module was a moon suit and off to the side was an original Apollo 7 capsule with its scorched surface from reentry displayed in Plexiglas.
Around us were numerous photo opportunities, blue screen photo and gift shops, a restaurant, models and real hardware from equipment used to work the Saturn V and Apollo missions.
After looking at all the displays, we went to see the "Apollo 11 landing on the Moon" multimedia show. Outside the entrance in the waiting area, we watched on the television monitors the beginning of the moon race, which built up to the show. Once the presentation was over, the doors swung open and we proceeded to take out seats in a large auditorium. One can easily forget that we were actually sitting out in the swamp area of Florida in 100-degree weather. On the side of the theater are large video monitors and in the middle, a stark moonscape.
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