Met an astronaut!

Yesterday morning we drove to the Kennedy Space Center and spent eight hours there, had dinner at Cracker Barrel, and then got back to our resort at the kids' bed time. Paul had been there in 1997, but I hadn't been there since I was a kid. The center has changed a lot since then! It's a lot more expensive to visit, but we used credit card points to get our tickets. We had a great time. I want to take the kids again when they are older (maybe in about 10 years?) when they know more about space exploration and can appreciate things like the tour of the rocket garden (which we skipped). Our first stop was to visit Space Shuttle Atlantis. They do a very nice job of unveiling her to visitors, and you can get very close to it. Nadia and Ian enjoyed a big slide in that  building, but Oliver was too short to go down it. Oliver was also too short to do the Shuttle Launch Experience ride so Paul's parents and Oliver did the observation deck of that experience while the other four of us rode the ride. Our next stop was a 3D IMAX movie about the Hubble. I had packed our lunches so we ate during the 43 minute movie.

Paul's parents ate lunch after the movie while the kids played in the play ground. Then we took the 12:30 bus tour which including our time at the Apollo/ Saturn V center lasted about 2 hours. I thought Oliver might take his nap on the bus tour, but actually he stayed awake and his siblings slept through part of the ride. A launch is scheduled for tomorrow, which we should be able to see from the beach at our resort. We visited more exhibits, spent more time at the playground, and took some pictures before meeting Barbara Morgan, a former astronaut. We attended a Q&A with her. Nadia asked a question (and told Barbara that she wants to go to the moon some day). Barbara (a teacher) was Christa McAuliffe's back-up for the Challenger mission, and after that tragedy she trained for another mission and did go to space later. Nadia said meeting her was the favorite part of her day at KSC. Our last stop of the day was to see a second IMAX movie about the projects NASA is working on right now to prepare for taking astronauts back to the moon and also to Mars for the first time. That IMAX movie was Paul's favorite part of the day, and I also really enjoyed that movie plus the launch experience ride.

Nadia touching a piece of a rock from the moon