As a spring break activity, I’ll be making the 24 hour drive to Cocoa Florida on Tuesday. I’m going with a particularly geeky group of people, the Iowa State Space Society, with who I fit in quite well.
We’re going to Kennedy Space Center on Tursday, and maybe the beach on Friday. We’ll probably have some spare time on Friday and perhaps Saturday morn, so if any of you nice folks have any ideas of things we could do, I’d appreciate hearing them.
Not all are over 21, and some don’t drink, so sex and booze is (perhaps sadly) generally ruled out.
The Space Center is, at this time, still not offering the tour of the Center itself. The “museum/attractions” part that is still open to the public is a decent afternoon’s fun for dedicated space geeks.
Of course, last time we were up that way, the tour guide was more interested in pointing out 'gators, and telling the “alligator in the car” story than telling us much about, y’know space stuff.
Au contraire (no offense, I just like the sound of that), Skeezix, but the bus tour is running normally as of a few weeks ago. I was just there myself.
Ron Jon’s surf shop is always fun for a visit and shopping. It’s open 24/7.
My cousin owns a gun range in Cocoa. You could go there for some shootin’. ( It’s loads of fun.)
[from a magazine that I am reading)
In Titusville, at the Miracle Mall shopping center there is a free, little known but rapidly growing small space museum. It is operated by a group of non profit retired NASA and contractor personnel who helped launced American’ men in space. These people volunteer their time and donated their artifacts. The people that donate their time have been known to be former launch directors to even ex-astronauts. (Strangely enough, the magazine article does not list the name of this little museum.)
In downtown Titusville there is the Astronaut’s Walk of Fame.
Ask at whereever you are staying what there is to do and what do the locals do for fun.
Yep, the Space Centre’s still active - galen ubal and I had a pretty good day there. There’s the visitor’s centre, plus the bus tour to the shuttle launch area and the Apollo/Saturn centre.
I’m back. The Astronaut Walk of Fame is run by the same people as the ones who do the museum in the mall. It was a neat place, and completely empty. They’re in the process of expanding right now; it will be even more impressive once it is done.
We spoke with a nice ex-NASA gentleman by the name of Sam Beddingfield, who knew his way around quite well. If I had a limited amount of time in the area, I’d reccommend hitting the Astronaut Hall of Fame and then that museum before KSC. KSC was neat, but it’s very easy to spend a couple days there. The rides in the Astronaut Hall of Fame were really fun.
I also think very highly of the “dine with an astronaut” program at KSC. The video they showed before his talk was one of the neatest things I saw at KSC.
The bus tour is running. If the line is long, just wander somewhere else for a bit; they seem to travel in clumps. Our group split up, some going for the bus tour and some watching an IMAX movie first. The people who went to the movie got to the first bus stop (an observation gantry) about five minutes after the other group. The movie was 40 minutes long.
The full access ticket with the dine with an astronaut thing is on sale if bought online and includes access to everything, including the Hall of Fame, bus tours, IMAX movies, etc.