Right after lunch, students and staff went for a tour of the Kennedy Space Center. Everyone found it very entertaining. First we toured the Launch Pads from the gantry, and had a drive-by of the Vehicle Assembly Building. The latter is over 52 stories tall; an imposing addition to the skyline.

Next we visited the Saturn/Apollo museum. Everything is oversized. It has an entire Saturn V rocket, laid out on its side in stages. The rocket by itself is 363 ft. long, each of the engines is capable of putting out 1.5 million pounds of thrust, and the rocket in its entirety contains the explosive power of a nuclear bomb.

“I was mesmerized by the sheer size of the Saturn V,” said Cadet Tech. Sgt. Alexa Solorio, a member of the Arizona Wing. Included in the museum were stories and interesting facts about all Apollo missions, from 1 to 17.  We also got to watch a fake launch sequence: we stood in elevated rows above the actual control center for the Apollo launches, as the recording of all the actual transmissions from T minus 3 were played... with the roar of the rocket engines.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

[1] Cadet Chief Master Sgt. Lydia Wiff taking the Space 101 test. [2] The Vehicle Assembly Building. [3] The bottom of the Saturn V rocket's first stage. [4] The Apollo 14 capsule. [5] Lower half of the Saturn 1B rocket. [6] Upper half of the Saturn 1B rocket. (Photos: C/2nd Lt. Christian Nelson)

Next we visited the Rocket Garden, that had full-scale models of many types of rockets: Redstone, Saturn 1B, Atlas Agena, Gemini Titan, Thor-Delta and several others. As an assignment, we had to fill out a scavenger hunt sheet, decode the identification number for a specific rocket, and gather other pertinent info on the rest of the space program.

Finally, we headed back to our classroom at Patrick Air Force Base, where we were debriefed on the scavenger hunt... and ate pizza for dinner. All the cadets thought the hunt had been a success and would recommend it for next year’s class.

We spent the evening watching TV, swimming at the hotel pool, or playing games and telling jokes. We are having a good time here, learning a lot, and look forward to tomorrow.