Stardust at Kennedy Space Center
“The galaxy blossoms, countless hexagons passing by each other.”
— lyric from a VOCALOID song
The first thing about Kennedy Space Station was that it was far away. Very far away.
It was an hour away from pretty much anywhere anyone could live (apparently because if a rocket launches and fails or something, it’d be horrible if someone’s home got destroyed because of the impact), and we all lay in the Grab guy’s car for a while.
I sipped my hot chocolate, while my younger sister was sleeping, and I started talking to my dad because I was bored out of my mind. Eventually, after the hour of staring at forest and the occasional shop, we made it.
It was stunning!
The first thing we saw was the original countdown clock that they used before changing it out for a newer model later. It was huge, and greeted everyone as they walked in.
Walking around, there was a carving on a wall with astronauts on it, and of course we took a picture with it.
After getting a map and wandering around aimlessly for a bit (you’ll definitely get lost at least once in the space center) taking pictures with all the model rockets scattered outside (it’s called the Rocket Garden, which makes a lot of sense). They were built like the actual rockets, so it was cool that we could pretend they were the actual rockets. we decided to go to the nearest attraction to us.
We went in, and it was basically an exhibit of the US Austronaut Hall of Fame where we watched things about inspiring stories of astronaut dreams and how they made it there.
After that beginning exhibit (it was just the beginning, it was good enough as a stand-alone exhibit though), we went inside the actual hall and stood there, waiting for our video. It was… also stunning (literally every video exhibit they had was stunning).
I’d just read Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun (I recommend it, it’s an amazing thing), and had gotten to Hanako’s past.
The main idea of it was that he wanted to become an astronaut, but gave up on his dream, and said “I’m not going anywhere,”.
Well, safe to say that when I saw something like astronaut dreams and them accomplishing them (ie almost every video exhibit), I cried because I was thinking “HANAKOOOO…. WHY…” and things like that. (Aidairo is great with their characters.)
Anyway, after that, we finished the video exhibit and exited to go to the museum in the connecting room. The whole family enjoyed that video exhibit and it was 3D so it was clearer in our heads. It was so inspiring and magical to our minds.
In the next room of the museum, there was a wall dedicated to all the astronauts of NASA.
It had everyone from the very first astronauts (Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, etc.) to the ones who retired in 2019 (when we visited).
There was also a hologram thing where we could ‘take a picture with the astronaut’.
Of course, we had to too, because why not, really.
In the hologram thing, we could also know more about specific missions, and specific astronauts (which wasn’t really used, most people just took pictures).
We then wandered around a bit more, taking in our surroundings.
In the middle, there was something with all the countries that had space programs and this huge mural of a satellite on the wall, which was really pretty.
After that, we went to have lunch.
And not just any lunch, lunch with a real live astronaut.
Coming into the experience, I for some reason thought it was a one-on-one thing, as in a conversation.
Of course it wasn’t (that’d be a lot of astronauts per group).
We waited in line outside the main buffet hall, and there were lots of elementary students near us, apparently on a field trip.
We stood there for a while since it opened at around 11:30, and I took some selfies on my phone with my younger sister and decided to look for some pictures.
The door opened to a room that wasn’t lit much, and most of the overall color scheme was purple-ish (fitting for space, I guess).
It was a buffet meal, so when our table was called, we’d all stood up and got our food. We were amazed when we went inside because as we said we thought it’d be a one-on-one thing. The buffet had lots of food choices.
Unfortunately for our Asian palates, there was no rice. I just got some teriyaki (the only Asian thing) and some salad, because my plate was looking horrible (just a pile of brown stuff, which kinda looked weird).
While we talked for a bit about who the astronaut might be (we hoped we’d get someone who really did lots of things in space) the lights dimmed.
We all turned towards the stage, where our astronaut, Mark Lee, stood. He went on six space missions (six!) and shared his experiences.
Mark Lee gave a 40-minute long speech about his experience in space.
He talked about things like where they stayed (this beach house which was the last chance to meet their family), their pre-mission ritual (playing cards), and lots of other interesting things (like that people worked out in space since things happen to your muscles, and that water looks really cool floating in midair, and their food was in these ziplock containers that were reheated in space).
Afterwards, he opened the floor for questions, and the elementary school kids asked most of them (I guess their teachers told them to, and when would you next meet an astronaut, anyway?). It was about 10 minutes of questions and answers.
It cost around $30 per person, and it was worth it, since we got pictures as well as the astronaut’s personal experience.
After the lunch (in which I barely ate anything), we started moving on to their exhibits.
I really wanted to go to the Apollo 11 one (it was the very first one that landed in the moon, and the… most influential, I guess?) but it was a 45 minutes bus ride away, so we boarded the bus to go to the exhibit.
On the way, we saw some things like the rocket launching centers, and there was a TV that kept playing information about where we were.
At our arrival, we first went inside the building.
A huge rocket dominated one part of the middle, and various shops and the museum were scattered around the area.
My sister and I waited for the other video exhibit to start, while my dad sat at the cafe there.
It took quite a while to start, so I went to the museum and took lots of pictures of every exhibit I could find, while my sister kept trying to get me out of there.
Once I did get out, we found a monkey mascot dressed in a space suit that we had to take a picture with (because, when would you see this sort of thing again?).
We got lucky, since right after us, the kids on a field trip started swarming the monkey after that, and the line for pictures now stretched 10 people long. People also started singing Dance Monkey really badly. (no offense to those people!).
When we made it inside the video exhibit (we missed the previous showing) it was about how the Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Watching it, it was like we were there on the journey as well, as observers.
It combined digital stuff with physical stuff, as in the rocket landed on the stage in front.
This being something that reminded me of Hanako, I cried yet again.
After the video exhibit, we bought some things to eat (water and some M&Ms (practically our lifeline by now)) and went back on the long bus ride.
This time the TV’s weren’t on, since I think we were following the same route, and we’d already heard the things before.
We then stopped for snack at the fast food place there, eating lots of fries and fried chicken, because well, we needed food.
After that, we decided to go to our last attraction of the day, and just chose the thing nearest to us.
We first walked into a huge exhibit hall and sat down on the floor as a video started playing on the screen.
It was basically about how they built the Atlantis space shuttle, and the concept behind it as well.
Once the exhibit was done, the video screen suddenly lifted like a curtain (which was surprising) and we all went out to the museum.
The first thing I saw was a mock-up of how it looked like in mini-size.
There were tons of explanation pages (as in, this did this, etc.) but I skipped past most of them (after taking pictures, of course) to go to some of the other things.
They had these games where you could pretend to be an astronaut fixing something in outer space, which were on three levels.
It wasn’t very good at detecting where my hands moved, so a lot of the time I was making big exaggerated movements to let it know that I wanted to pick something up.
After playing all three levels, my younger sister dragged me to the slide they had in the exhibit as well.
(This was definitely the most interactive museum.)
Then, we went to buy some souvenirs from the shop.
They had tons of space-related things, including postcards, pins, and a pen that could write in space (my dad and sister got one of these pens each).
Apparently, those pens could write anywhere, even underwater, upside down, or in space.
Because of their excellence, they were priced at $25.
(We spent a scary amount of money on this.)
We spent 30 minutes in there, picking out souvenirs to bring back home, take pictures, and get a signature from Mark Lee, the astronaut who was there for signing. (Guessing he was there because, well, he already visited the Kennedy Space Center for eating with an astronaut, might as well stay on for signing).
I got a NASA pin, which is now proudly attached on my bag alongside Ron, a flying snitch, Shooky, and some mini fries. (Shooky fell off because the safety pin failed, but at the time of the trip, Shooky was still safely there.)
After that, we decided to leave the space center and drove back using the same road.
This time we were talking more, because we had our experiences to talk about. It was nighttime by then.
Eventually, though, we all slumped in the seats and slept (walking around the huge complex was tiring).
That concludes our adventure! I hope you enjoyed reading, and please try visiting it if you’re ever in Florida!
Ysa