Today was out of this world. Literally.
We travelled to the Kennedy Space Centre. Having heard school mates talk about their trips to Kennedy and Disney during March breaks in the late 70's and early 80's, my expectations were low. I could not have been more surprised.
Today turned into a fantastic trip through the history of space flight from the Mercury and Gemini missions, onto Apollo, and the Shuttle and then a look into the future.
We were fortunate enough to be able to watch the mobile launch pad crawl at 1 mile an hour with a next generation launch assembly to a pad (maybe for a mission to Mars).
The highlight of the day came from a talk given by a real astronaut. Wendy Lawrence, veteran of 4 shuttle missions, presented her experience as crew member and Canadarm specialist on the first mission following the Columbia disaster. She was on the flight that tried and tested the new techniques to check the tiles of the shuttle. It was terrific to be able to listen to a female astronaut speak and describe her experiences. Great contrast to the first years of space flight that were populated solely by male heroes. Jessica and Madeline both discussed being the first Female Canadian on the Moon or Mars.
They are the age of the humans that will do those missions. Look around you. One of the 7 or 9 year olds out there today will be the first human on Mars.
The concept of space travel is incredibly exciting and our tour of this space port was fantastic!
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