PastPost - Past and Present at Kennedy Space Center

Note: This post was originally published on a now-defunct website in 2010.  However, it is timely given current activities at Kennedy Space Center to get STS-133 Discovery aloft on her last mission before retirement.

______________________________

Past and Present at Kennedy Space Center

February 2010

The KSC Visitor Complex, while presenting the public with a look at current NASA space activities, also allows reflection upon past achievements and sacrifices through displays of historic artifacts and memorials at the complex and at the impressive Apollo/Saturn V Center.

(above)  The KSC Visitor Complex is well known for the Rocket Garden - the display of several vintage rockets and capsules - which dominates the area.  Seven rockets, including six that stand as if ready to launch, represent the 'golden age' of space flight from the late 1950s through the 1960s and those vehicles that carried the first American astronauts, satellites and interplanetary probes into space.  They are, from left to right, Mercury-Atlas represented by an Atlas-D, Atlas-Agena A represented by an Atlas-F, Mercury-Redstone, Delta-B, Juno II and Jupiter C.  All of these rockets were based on medium or intermediate range ballistic missiles originally designed for US Army or US Air Force use during the early Cold War years.

(above)  A requirement for a new rocket, designed specifically to launch astronauts and heavy loads into orbit, led to the development of the Saturn series that would culminate in the huge Saturn V forever associated with the Apollo program and the first landing of humans on the surface of the moon in July 1969.  The Saturn V, used for all of the lunar visits, was preceded by the smaller Saturn IB which featured distinctive external alternating kerosene and liquid oxygen fuel tanks.  Saturn IBs, an example of which is seen here on horizontal display in the Rocket Garden, were used for mid-1960s tests during the Apollo program and, in the 1970s, to carry astronauts to the Skylab space station.

(above)  Though the launching of unmanned rockets remains a major part of NASA activities at Kennedy Space Center, the facility has for the last three decades been associated, at least in the public eye, with space shuttle operations.  The Visitor Complex would not be complete without a shuttle and since there are only three in existence and all are in service a full-scale replica of an Orbiter Vehicle must suffice.  This example, wearing the markings of the fictitious Explorer, serves to give visitors an idea of the shuttle's size and the complexity of the protective tile undersurface.

(above)  The Apollo / Saturn V Center, located in another part of Kennedy Space Center but accessible by KSC buses, houses a very impressive collection of displays and original hardware relevant to this famous era of space exploration.  Though the central exhibit is a Saturn V rocket, a special exhibit of some size marks the 40th anniversary of the Apollo XI mission that landed astronauts on the moon for the first time.  Among the items displayed is the Apollo 14 command module, Kitty Hawk, that carried Alan B. Shepard Jr. (Commander), Stuart A. Roosa (Command Module Pilot) and Edgar D. Mitchell (Lunar Module Pilot) into orbit around the moon and returned them to a splashdown in the western Pacific Ocean between 31 January and 9 February 1971.  It was the Command Module Pilot's lot in life to remain in orbit - and out of the media spotlight - while the other two astronauts carried out their tasks on the moon.  However, he was far from unimportant and among his duties was the provision of communications relay services between Mission Control and the astronauts below.

(above)  Current NASA manned space programs, at least as of the beginning of 2010, are represented by this Orion capsule replica.  While it bears a striking resemblance to the Apollo command modules that carried three astronauts four decades ago, Orion is significantly larger and is designed to carry four astronauts initially.  Orion was intended to ride atop Ares I - one of NASA's next generation of rockets.  The Ares family was a result of a shift in policy by the administration of President George W. Bush that was announced in January 2004 and directed NASA to end space shuttle operations in 2010 and plan to return astronauts to the moon by 2020 with the eventual goal of landing humans on Mars.  Unlike the space shuttle however, it seems that the Ares I / Orion combination, which was also to be used to transport astronauts to the International Space Station, will not have a chance to prove itself for an announcement by President Barack Obama on 1 February 2010 in conjunction with his proposed Fiscal Year 2011 budget to the US Congress indicated that the program, known as Constellation, will be ended.  Instead, NASA will subsidize the development of rockets by private sector firms for use in a commercial space transportation system that will carry its astronauts to the ISS.  Until that time, which is an unknown number of years away at this point, NASA's astronauts will have to rely on the rockets of foreign nations to take them there.  Then again, the budget submission is only a request and many in Congress, which ultimately controls the nation's purse strings, appear to have other ideas.  Time will tell.