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| The Vehicle Assembly
Building
The VAB was originally built to allow
for the vertical assembly of the Saturn V rocket for the Apollo program.
It is now the location where the space shuttle orbiter is mated to the
solid rocket boosters and the external fuel tank. Once this process has
taken place, it is then known as the space shuttle. |
Discovery on launch pad
39A being prepared for launch on 31 May 2008 |
Nigel with
Astronaut Bob Springer.
Bob Springer has made two trips to
space, once on Space Shuttle Discovery (March 13-18, 1989) and Space
Shuttle Atlantis (November 15-20, 1990).
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| The 9-ton granite
Constellation floating on water....
kids can't resist playing with this! |
Nigel standing in front
of Saturn V 27 brave men on 13
different missions were secured atop this 363 foot high x 33 feet
diameter rocket as man made his way to the moon and back. |
5 F-1 Engines provided
6,672,000 Newtons thrust each and in later flights they were uprated to
6,805,000 |
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| This photo shows the
first stage of three stages of the Saturn V rocket. Liquid oxygen was
used as an oxidizer in all stages and RP1 was used for fuel in the first
stage only. Burn time was 150 seconds. |
Stage two and three used
liguid hydrogen (KH2) for fuel. S-II was 81 feet long x 33 feet
diameter. |
The Upper Stages also
used small solid-fuelled ullage motors that helped seperate the stages
during launch. The 3rd stage had one J-2 engine. It was 58 feet long and
had a diameter of 21 feet. |
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| The Service and Command
Modules sat on top of the three stages of the Saturn V rocket. |
The Saturn V Rocket |
The bus that was used to
transport the astronauts to the launch site |
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| The huge Vehicle
Assembly Building is 525 feet tall, 716 feet
long and 518 feet wide. It covers 8 acres and encloses 129,428,000 cubic
feet of space. Each of the stars
on the American flag painted on the building is 6 feet across. The blue
field is the size of a regulation basketball court and the stripes are
approximately 8 feet wide. The flag is 209 feet high by 110 feet wide.
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There are four entries
to the VAB. Each door is 456 feet high and the north entry that leads to
the transfer aisle was widened to 40 feet to allow entry of the orbiter.
A central slot at the center of the north entry allows for the passage
of the orbiter's vertical stabilizer.
To lift the components of the Space
Transportation System (Space Shuttle), the VAB houses 71 cranes and two
bridge cranes.
The glass fronted building to the left
of the photo shows the launch control center and they hand over to
Houston Mission Control shortly after launch. |
Launch pad 39-A before
Space Shuttle Discovery made it's way to the launch site.
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| KSC Complex showing
where orbiters Discovery, Atlantis and Endeavour are housed. |
The crawler transporter
is a tracked vehicle and has been used to transport the Saturn V rocket
and the Saturn 1B rocket during the Skylab and Apollo-Soyuz project. It
is now used to transport the Space Shuttle from the Vehicle Assembly
Building along the crawlerway to launch complex 39 |
Discovery rolls to the
launch pad. The crawler travels at approximately 1 mile per hour when
loaded and 2 miles per hour when unloaded. The crawlerway is 3.5 miles
long and the average trip from the VAB to launch complex 39 is
approximately 5 hours. |
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| The International Space
Station Center is the third stop on the bus tour and provides an
interesting view of the current projects at hand. |
Current projects shortly
to make their way on one of the space shuttle's to the International
Space Station. |
The International Space
Station
Upon completion the ISS will be 191 feet
long x 146 feet wide x 90ft high and it will be visible from Earth. |
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| One of the International
Space Station's modules |
Ever wondered how you go
to the bathroom in space? Here's the answer... hold tight! |
More modules |
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| The means to get the
modules to space... the orbiter. |
The flight deck of the
orbiter. |
The payload area. |
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| External fuel tank and
solid rocket boosters |
The Rocket Garden |
The Rocket Garden |
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| In Memory |
The Astronaut Memorial
Wall |
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| United States Astronaut
Hall of Fame |
Control Panel from
Mission Control - Houston |
Tuesday February 20,
1962 |
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| Sunday July 20, 1969 |
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Left to Right: Commander
Neil Alden Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins and Lunar
Module Pilot Edwin Eugene 'Buzz' Aldrin, Jr. |
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| Apollo 14 Command Module |
The Future - The
Constellation Program - Orion |
Project Constellation is
the new generation of spacecraft, consisting of Ares 1 and Ares V launch
vehicles, the Orion crew capsule, the earth departure stage and the
Altair lunar landing.
The project will see man return to the
moon for the first time in 30 years and will start to lay the foundation
to explore Mars and beyond in the first half of the 21st century. |
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