Special Event at KSC

Saturday morning, Carolyn and Sid left for their journey back to Maine.

We left to meet friends at KSC to take part in Family Day for Employees Families at KSC..

Per usual, Guy had connections and we were Steve's Guests for the day.

Needless to say, we were thrilled!! Our first event was a driveby past Pad 39A & B Launch Pads.

It was extremely rare that there were 2 "birds" sitting in the gantrys at the same time.

Atlantis, scheduled to liftoff May 12th.

This is for the Hubble Telescope

If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can see on the extreme right
Endeavor sitting there...can be used in an emergency to rescue Atlantis if need be.

Here is Discovery being refurbished after its recent flight.

Note underneath where engines were, tags for heat shield damage.

Each color represents work required.

Astronaut from Mission STS126

I'm holding a suit that an Astronaut wears underneath his Space Suit..

note the tubes inside that run cool water through to keep him cool during liftoff

Steve and Guy in front of one of the cones from Discovery's engine...

one of NASA's fork lifts

Diagram to ID each heat tile

It was an amazing day....so much to see and learn

If anyone is interested, we took over 200 pictures (surprise! surprise!)

and would be more than happy to share with you....