Space: 2005

Yuriko was the one who really wanted to visit the Kennedy Space Center on this trip. I was a little surprised, since we’d had discussions about the American space program before, and I’d come to believe that she thought of it as a large example of U.S. national hubris. It’s an opinion I don’t share, since I think the first decade of manned space flight—and that includes the Russian program—was one of the great achievements of mankind, and I’m lucky to be old enough to remember some of it.

But she wanted to go, and I was happy to oblige, even though it looked like at least a two-hour drive between the coasts of the state. I went by myself to the KSC in February 2000, and wrote this about it: “The trip to Florida really wasn’t a tourist trip, but I did manage to squeeze in some things, especially the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, which is only about 45 minutes away from Orlando. I had obligations back in Orlando Sunday afternoon, but I was free that morning. I had enough time to take the NASA bus tour, see some of the visitor center exhibits, include the “Rocket Garden,” and eat lunch at the café—roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, tea and Key lime pie.

“The bus tour takes you to (1) an observation deck some distance from Launch Pad 39, where the Shuttles lift off; (2) a large building with a genuine, restored Saturn V rocket; and (3) and exhibit about the yet-to-be finished Space Station. The first and third stops were OK, but the Saturn V rocket exhibit was worth the price of admission alone. It is, of course, a huge thing, but more impressive was what it did. NASA brags that it was the greatest machine ever built, and I think they have a case.”

Things are not so different at the KSC now. The star attraction is still the Saturn V, the cafeteria seemed about the same (I shared pizza with the kids this time), and the gift shops were still chockablock with space gewgaws.

On the other hand, everyone now goes through a metal detector to get in, plus a hand search of bags, which wasn’t the case five years ago. Also, the bus tour now stops only to see Pad 39 and the Saturn V. This is an improvement, since the Space Station practice models at the third stop had all the panache of a clean bus station, and you left with the sense that maybe you were looking at a very expensive white elephant. So I didn’t miss that stop this time around.

The Saturn V is still worth the price of admission. Worth the drive across Florida. Worth the lines that weren’t quite of Disney magnitude, but still long enough, to board the tour buses. Yuriko was indeed impressed. “I didn’t know it was so large,” she said. She also hadn’t realized that the rocket came in stages, or that the lunar module was tucked inside the top of the third stage, or that only the command module returned to Earth, while the rest of it went into the ocean or into space. She was not fortunate in her childhood in that way, like I was; I absorbed a lot of information about this rocket as a boy.

Last year’s hurricanes left their mark on the KSC. The Vehicle Assembly Building, one of the largest buildings in the world, had had parts of its skin shorn away; this was being repaired. The Saturn V building had been damaged in one place, making the roof leak; this too was under reconstruction.

Then there was the missing rocket. The Rocket Garden is an outdoor display of various early Space Age rockets, such as the Redstone, the Atlas, the Agena and others. Each one stands upright behind a circular railing, the better to discourage anyone with a mind to climb them. Behind one of the circular railings was an empty spot—and a sign informing the public that the display, a Juno II, had been damaged by the hurricane. A section of the rail was bent, so the thing probably fell over on it. So it’s out for repairs. NASA must be doing this itself, since I don’t think that’s something you can take to the corner rocket repair garage.