A Journal, with Pictures

Sat­ur­day at 8:30 the bus left for the Space Cen­ter and those that came in Sat­ur­day were picked up sep­a­rate­ly to meet the group. We entered the vis­i­tor area and start­ed to explore on our own. The first thing you come to is the ear­ly space explo­ration exhib­it and the rock­et gar­den. One of our atten­dees tried the Mer­cury cap­sule on for size, very tight fit. On our way to the IMAX Hub­ble 3D movie we saw next gen­er­a­tion space vehi­cle the Ori­on. The IMAX expe­ri­ence was the best ever for us.

After the IMAX film it was time to board the pri­vate COPA tour of the Shut­tle launch pad. On the way we past the VAB, Vehi­cle Assem­bly Build­ing, which is huge and being pre­pared for the next gen­er­a­tion vehi­cle deliv­ery sys­tem. We viewed the Shut­tle launch pad from all sides and up close in the blast trench, it is big and impressive.

The Launch Pad tour end­ed at the Sat­urn V/Apollo exhib­it. The exhib­it starts with a film of the peri­od lead­ing to the race for space end­ing with the moon land­ing. We then went to the moon launch con­trol room and the launch was reen­act­ed. We then viewed the exhib­it, again the size of the Sat­urn V is stag­ger­ing and the exhibits numerous.

After the Saturn/Apollo exhib­it we returned to the vis­i­tor cen­ter and most went to the Space Shut­tle exhib­it. It start­ed with a film about the project and all of the engi­neer­ing chal­lenges and ends with a sec­ond film of the first launch. As the film ends the screen dis­solves into a close up of the Atlantis and dis­ap­pears and there is the shut­tle Atlantis, very dra­mat­ic. Again a very exten­sive exhib­it. After the Shut­tle exhib­it there was a lit­tle time to wan­der and explore. We still just scratched the sur­face but we were start­ing to run out of gas and we head­ed for the wait­ing bus. Some, not to men­tion any names, Bri­an, were so engrossed that a spe­cial strag­gler res­cue mis­sion was, accom­plished by our event coor­di­na­tor extra­or­di­naire Rick Daw­son. Let the record show the bus­es left right on time with great pre­ci­sion, just like a space launch.

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Sat­ur­day evening there was COPA cock­tails and Din­ner, lots of dis­cus­sion about the the days activ­i­ty. After cock­tail hour and din­ner we had a draw­ing for door prizes, that includ­ed prizes for Cir­rus one of our event spon­sors, and LoPresti donat­ed their next gen­er­a­tion Land­ing and Taxi light sys­tem val­ued at $2000. Avi­dyne then spon­sored our guest speak­er Bob Cur­ry the retired oper­a­tions man­ag­er of the Orlan­do tow­er and tra­con, who gave us a brief­ing on fly­ing through class B airspace.

Rick and Joyce Daw­son, orga­nized and put on an incred­i­ble event. Every detail was done at the high­est pro­fes­sion­al lev­el and con­tin­ued into Sun­day, when bus­es left for the air­port , at 7:00, 8:00 and 9:00 Am with spe­cial arrange­ments for those that want­ed to vis­it the Valiant Air Com­mand War­bird Muse­um on the way. Every one of the 53 atten­dees gave Joyce and Rick a big THANKs for a great job at Sat­ur­days din­ner and as we were leaving.

SOUTH EAST REGION EVENT COORDINATORS EXTRAORDINAIRE

JOYCE AND RICK DAWSON