Entering the Kennedy Space Center.

Claudia leaning against one of the early Gemini capsules. The cockpit was about the size of an old Volkswagen.

A model of the new Orion capsule that will be used for the upcoming Mars voyage. The astronauts are already in training for this mission, which will take six months each way, plus the actual time spent on the surface.

This is a shot of the two rockets and the giant fuel tank in the center that were used for all of the shuttle launches. It was this rocket that caused the Challenger to blow up on launch. The rockets are assembled in sections and one of the “O-ring” gaskets failed. The controllers were powerless to stop it, as once a solid-fuel rocket like this is lit…it can’t be shut down.

The cargo bay of the space shuttle, with the remote payload arm sticking out. This arm launched the satellites, space station pieces, etc.

The Atlantis cockpit. When it landed, it was put on display…space dirt, burn marks and all. NASA wanted the public to see it exactly as it was when it returned to Earth.

A scale model of the giant Hubble telescope. After decades in space, it’s still sending back amazing images. It will be replaced with a much more powerful telescope in the next couple years.

An actual suit and backpack used in the space walks. The backpack contained small jet nozzles used to move the astronaut around….pretty scary when you realize that there was no safety line connected to the ship. One malfunctioning jet and you were launched into space forever, with no hope of being reeled back in. Yikes!

Another shot of the cargo bay. The space station is a series of long tubes assembled into larger rooms. The reason for this is that no section could be larger than the cargo bay.

Claudia reading the interactive information boards…which held videos, pictures…hours of information on each one.

A little closer shot of the cargo bay with the port used to dock the shuttle to the space station.

The giant rocket exhaust nozzles of the shuttle. Not only were the launch rockets powerful, the shuttle itself was equipped for reentry and maneuvering while in space.

This is a close-up of one of the shuttle rocket engines.

A close-up of the shuttle dock mechanism. This is how they docked the shuttle to the space station and once docked, this was how the astronauts moved back and forth between the two ships.

Unlike most airplanes, the exterior of the shuttle had no screws or rivets…all the panels were glued in place. Pretty amazing.

A close-up of the docking port. The springs helped ease the bump when the ships docked. Since there is no weight in space, even small springs like these were sufficient to do the job.

I tried to show the tiles that lined the underside of the shuttle. Many thousands were used. It took over 12 years to perfect the tiles and the glue used to hold them in place.

The underside of the tiles look like alligator skin.

The mighty Atlas V rocket. To this day, the largest rocket ever assembled and flown. It stands as tall as a 34-story building and dwarfs all of the other rockets. It has been retired and a new launch system is nearly ready for use in 2020 and beyond.

They call this the “Rocket Garden”….all of the rockets with the astronaut capsules on top used by NASA are displayed here.

The business end of the Atlas V rocket.

A 2-man Gemini capsule. Hard to believe the astronauts spent days inside these capsules.

An example of an early suit used for inside the capsule.

A view showing the two seats inside a Gemini capsule.

A statue of Alan Sheppard, the first US astronaut launched into space. When you look back at how little we actually knew about space travel in 1962 when he launched, his heroism is amazing.