It was the first early riser.
Heavy, sleepy, gloomy, in the night that insisted on resisting. We started from the lawn of Willow Lane de Cocoa. From that gardened alley, we followed the coordinates without a hitch.
We had been told that, on release day, we should arrive early. We carried out the advice to a degree that bordered on the insane. Even so, traversing the expanse of sub-tropical forest and soaking meadows, when we stop at the traffic lights on the Kennedy Space Center's grand boulevard, we are anything but pioneers.
We shut off the engine. We recline the seats. With the alarm activated, we dozed off.
The idea was to get in in time to watch the launch of Space X Crew Dragon In-Flight Abort Test, as the name implies, programmed to interrupt its ascent and ensure that, without damage, the spacecraft landed in the Atlantic.
O Space X Crew Dragon In-Flight Abort Test who ended up aborted
The test was intended to prove the safety of the crew if the official launch had to be aborted for any reason. When we woke up, we realized that the test itself was out of order.
Electronic panels above the gantries indicated that the launch had been postponed until the next day.
According to what we found out, agitated by a day or two of strong winds, the sea off Cape Canaveral did not guarantee the integrity of the ship, nor its recovery.
Kennedy Space Center entrance with Space X In-Flight Abort Test suspension notice.
Space X and NASA were counting on the next morning, the wind and sea to subside.
We decided to discover the Kennedy Space Center. As a rule, the center only opened at nine in the morning. But its authorities insisted on rewarding the effort of the launching public.
Accordingly, he was allowed access to the premises two hours earlier.
We entered. We greet with a "thanks” effusive to the employee of Philippines who we had spoken to the previous afternoon when we picked up the tickets.
Discovering the Dining Room, at the Vast Kennedy Space Center
Just a few steps from the inner portico onwards, we are faced with the Rocket Garden, a kind of installation made up of rockets pointing to the sky that seem to welcome the newcomers.
Sun behind Kennedy Space Center's Rocket Garden.
We wander among those wonders now of a museum, intrigued by their spatial and abysmal stories.
There was the Mercury Redstone 3 that launched the American dream and in which Alan Shepard successfully completed the first manned space flight in the United States, among several others from the successive NASA programs: the Mercury, the Gemini and the Apollo.
We investigate the manned capsules displayed there so that visitors can feel the comfort – or, in most cases, the lack of it – in which the astronauts traveled to space.
The sun was already soaring over the Atlantic to the east and the Astronauts Hall of Fame United States it didn't take long to open.
Visitor walks through an elevated walkway of Kennedy Space Center's Rocket Garden.
In the Hall of Fame, we find an assortment of pivotal moments and personalities for space science, and, of course, the astronauts who, over the decades, had given it their lives.
But not only.
The Controversial Memory of Martin Luther King in the KSC Hall of Fame
The memorial proved to be political enough to also highlight Martin Luther King.
This ill-fated activist has visited Florida several times, including the Cocoa region of the current Space Coast and the vicinity of the Kennedy Space Center. There he lived and shared ideals with influential pastor WO Wells.
On one such occasion, Wells even wrote to Kennedy and expressed concern about NASA's duty to hire employees of the black and other minority as well, something that to date was far from happening.
Fountain at the entrance of Kennedy Space Center honors the President who most pushed the American Space Program forward.
In your book “Where do we go from here?” of 1967, half a year after the explosion that killed three Apollo I astronauts in a test launch, Luther King challenged the United States to prioritize solving its internal problems over conquering the Moon:
“…if our nation can spend $35 billion a year to wage an evil, unjust war in Vietnam and $20 billion to take a man to the moon, then it can also spend a few billion dollars to put God's children on your own feet, here at EARTH. "
As contradictory as it may sound, Wells testified that Luther King expressed a desire to watch one of the rocket launches.
Simultaneously, about a year after his assassination in Atlanta, King's words in his speeches and works instigated demonstrations at the Kennedy Space Center as NASA prepared to launch its Apollo II, the first mission manned to aim at the moon.
Mirrored hall of the Astronaut Hall of Fame, which commends American astronauts.
We continue to cross the Hall of Fame, increasingly uncomfortable with the exaggerated and even ridiculous protagonism given to the heroism that Americans value so much and that they no longer seem to be able to dissociate from their lives.
The Hall of Fame pavilion ends in shades of cosmos blue and gold, in a hall with dozens of profiles of the protagonists of the conquest of Space, reflected in a glossy floor.
By Bus, in Orbit of NASA Facilities
We left it in a hurry, rushing to a loading dock, despite everything, far less pompous in the Center. “The Journey Starts Here” dictates a hatch that looks like “Space 1999”.
On the other side, we join an already long queue and board one of the buses that travel around NASA's facilities, its various platforms for testing, launching and the like.
Structural base of one of the Kennedy Space Center launch pads.
It's the driver himself who narrates the trip, which introduces us to NASA's large, nearly cubic building, the 39B launch complex, and the huge rocket and space vehicle assembly hangar.
The Apollo Program and the Saturn V Rocket, a Successful Duo
At one of its stops, the bus leaves us at the door of the Apollo/Saturn V complex. There, the Saturn V rocket impresses us, for its overwhelming size, more important than the others since all the humans who set foot on the Moon departing from Kennedy Space Center hit her aboard a Saturn V.
There, from one end to the other, we tried to disentangle the various parts of its structure:
the Apollo capsule, the lunar module, the liquid oxygen tanks (LOX), the fuel tanks and the sections occupied by the three sets of RocketDynes, starting with the base's five F-1 engines, which an unexpected proximity confers a special drama.
The base of the Saturn V rocket on which all the astronauts who set foot on the Moon's surface traveled.
We also admire the various spacesuit prototypes proposed to NASA and the casts of the astronauts' hands used to create their gloves.
We observe the Lunar Roving Vehicle with the nostalgic fascination of someone who spent many hours of childhood playing “Moon Alert”, one of the first releases (read creation and commercialization of games) for ZX Spectrum from the company Ocean Software.
More seriously, although still in simulation mode, we watched the operations that enabled the launch of the Saturn V from the Apollo 8 program.
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's Perilating Alumnage
And, in another room, we followed the lunar journey that ended with the pioneer student.
There, we understand better how perilous and marginal its realization proved to be.
How Neil Armstrong realized that the place of contact programmed into the vehicle's computer corresponded to an area littered with rocks.
Replica of the Apollo Program control room.
As he was forced to assume the semi-automatic mode of the "Eagle" and, with the fuel about to run out, managed to land it in a relatively flat area of Sea Tranquilitatis.
We experience it all. And much more.
On the short and, by comparison, insignificant bus ride back through the area between the Indian and Banana rivers, the driver points passengers to some of the alligators NASA officials have become accustomed to living with. Frustrated by that sudden return to earthly banalities, we hurried to the Space Shuttle Atlantis compound.
Inside, similar to what happened with the Saturn V rocket, we were amazed at the elegance – much more than the size – of this space shuttle that left the earth to steam and smoke but returned in a smoother landing, more planar than the one in many commercial aircraft.
And who managed to evade the worst tragedies of the American Space Program, the Challenger and Columbia shuttles.
Child helps to define the dimension of a part of a destroyed space shuttle.
A Shaky Space Rocket Launch Simulation
We knew the last of the modalities well. Thus, we experienced what astronauts felt during rocket launches.
Almost lying down, strapped into large armchairs by seat belts, we vibrated and shuddered as if the gigantic rocket engines had, in fact, propelled us.
After all, we thought take-offs were, for astronauts, more extreme experiences.
With all those visits and simulations accomplished, the day at the Space Center was drawing to a close. We spent it in absolute dazzle. But we didn't forget the frustration in which we had dawned.
In agreement, in the following dawn, we repeated the night awakening.
Back to Space X Crew Dragon In-Flight Abort Test
Space X was going to try the Space X Crew Dragon In-Flight Abort Test. We would do anything to witness it.
Instead of heading to the Space Center, we tried to get closer to the launch area. We point to Playa Linda beach, one of those privileged places.
Once in Titusville, we crossed the A. Max Brewer Bridge. As we feared, on the other side, the police barred access to Merrit Island that housed the Space Center and gave access to Playa Linda.
We reverse course. We parked at a point on the bank of the Indian River that seemed favorable to us. We photographed the break of day. We turn off the engine, recline the seats.
With the alarm activated, we dozed off.
The Stratospheric Ascension and the Programmed Descent over the Atlantic Ocean
Gradually, the entire bank was filled with an enthusiastic multinational audience, armed with cameras and tripods facing the Atlantic.
Photographers await the release of Falcon 9, part of the Space X In-Flight Abort Test.
We checked the successive ads sent by the Kennedy Space Center app.
Everything indicated that the launch was going to take place.
At around ten in the morning, at the announced time, the Falcon 9 rocket there appeared above the vegetation of the Isle of Merrit, its engines generating a long incandescent beam. It climbed until we were almost out of sight.
Space S Falcon 9 rocket ascends during the Space X In-Flight Abort Test.
Shortly thereafter, it dissolved in a stratospheric firework.
That had been the moment of interruption of the launch tested by Space X of Elon Musk, the private company that, saturated with the gigantic costs and poor profits of NASA, the United States instructed to proceed with the space program, with a focus on Mars and a way more economical.
Already imperceptible to the eye, as with the lenses we had, the crew's Dragon capsule plummeted over the ocean.
As planned, Space X retrieved it.
It has again shied away from multimillion damages.
HOW TO GO
Book and fly with TAP Air Portugal: www.flytap.com TAP flies direct from Lisbon to Miami every day.
