As promised, more Atlantis pics

Scottthebadger was kind enough to compliment my simile of Atlantis pinned like a butterfly on display. It’s even more obvious when you see the cargo bay doors open. So big yet so fragile. We told the kids about the carbon-carbon panels, and how they had been removed from Enterprise for the Columbia accident investigation. You…

Scottthebadger was kind enough to compliment my simile of Atlantis pinned like a butterfly on display. It’s even more obvious when you see the cargo bay doors open.

So big yet so fragile.

We told the kids about the carbon-carbon panels, and how they had been removed from Enterprise for the Columbia accident investigation.

You can see where the SRB exhaust discolored the tiles.

The underside, with the reentry heating streaks.

There’s a lot more at the visitors center than just Atlantis. A rocket park.

A bus ride past the VAB and launch control center.

Launch pads being readied for SLS and SpaceX.

A separate building for the Saturn V and Apollo program, with a lot of lunar memorabilia. My favorite was seeing the moon dust on Alan Shepard’s Apollo 14 space suit.

Another separate building for early manned space days, including the Gemini 9A capsule. This was the “angry alligator” mission, crewed by Thomas Stafford and Gene Cernan after Elliot See and Charles Bassett were killed in a plane crash.

The Astronaut Memorial Wall.

A T-38. (Where’s Phat when you need him?)

I liked this display about aircraft innovations developed by Langley, Dryden (now Armstrong), and Ames.

After a full day of rockets, we ate some rock shrimp at Dixie Crossroads in Titusville. Yum!