John F. Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex

The Rocket Garden

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Comms Tower 683x1024

On the left is the first exhibit in the garden. It's a Communications Tower used in the very early days of NASA's existence for communicating with flight crew.

It was powerful enough for a lot of uses in the earlier days, but as flights got longer and longer, more specifically as the Apollo program got closer and closer to the moon, it was necessary to upgrade the specifications, so on the right is it's more modern-day counterpart.

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The first of the actual rockets of note here is the relatively small Juno II rocket.

This four-stage rocket was the type used to launch the Pioneer deep space probes on their missions. It has also been used to launch several Explorer-class satellites into Earth Orbit. It's predecessor, the Juno I simply the top three-stages of this rocket and it was used to launch America's first satellite into orbit in reply to Russia's Sputnik.

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This Delta rocket is, again, an unmanned rocket. This time with 3-stages. It is a rocket which has launched satellites into orbit since the start of the 1960's for both Military and Commercial uses. The modern evolution of this rocket is the brand-new Delta-IV being developed at Cape Canaveral.

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Next is a Mercury Redstone rocket. These rockets were used at the start of the Mercury Project, the primary goal of which was to try to put a man into space and return him safely to Earth.

It was one of these Mercury Redstone launch vehicles which propelled the first American, Alan B. Shepard, into space on 5 May, 1961 aboard his single-seat Freedom 7 Capsule.

Shepard was not the first man in space. The Russians had beaten him and NASA to that title by putting Sr. Maj. Yuri Gagarin into Orbit aboard his Vostok I on 12 April, 1961.

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On 20 February, 1962, the Friendship 7 Mercury Capsule containing Lt. Colonel John H. Glenn Jr. sat atop a Mercury Atlas rocket.

That morning he was boosted into Orbit to circle the Earth three times, and so he became the first American in orbit.

Russian Sr. Maj. Yuri Gagarin had been the first man to Orbit the Earth in Vostok I on his flight on 12 April, 1961, nearly a year before.

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The Atlas rocket has seen a lot of different uses throughout NASA's existence. This next example is an Atlas Agena. It has an Atlas Launch Vehicle, and atop it there is an Agena nose cone, which may have its own Propulsion System or not. A series of these Agena modules were used during the Gemini Project as target units which crews could approach, rendezvous and dock with.

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The Atlas was not powerful enough to launch two men into orbit, so the larger Titan II rockets were used for the Gemini Project. There is a large Gemini Titan rocket located in the garden and is the tallest rocket there which is stood upright.

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The Titan II is not, however, the largest rocket in the Rocket Garden. That title belongs to the very impressive Saturn-1B lying down on its side at the back.

This actual example is the reconditioned rocket which stood as an emergency rescue vehicle for the crew of SkyLab in case of severe problems aboard the American Space Station. Thankfully, it was never required and now has pride of place here in the Rocket Garden.

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An H-1 rocket engine from the Saturn-1B is also exhibited here in the Rocket Garden just next to the parent rocket itself.

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There are also two example engines from the Saturn-1B's bigger brother; the gargantuan Saturn-V which took Apollo crews to the Moon.

The first is an F-1 engine, one of five used on the vast lower stage for a 2.5 minute burn to boost the Saturn-V Launch Vehicle to an altitude of 25 miles.

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Saturn-V J-2 engine 1024x683

The second is a slightly smaller J-2 engine. It was used on all the upper stages of the Saturn-V Launch Vehicle. The second stage engines would burn for more than 8 minutes, and would accelerate the vehicle to a speed of 16,000 mph at an altitude of 115 miles.

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There is also a mock-up of a gantry to an Apollo Capsule with three suited figures inside. It is possible to walk down the gantry and look inside the Capsule to get a feeling of what it must have been like for Astronauts to walk out before a flight to the Moon.

Meet a Spaceman

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There is a friendly chap who wanders about the Visitor Center from time to time. He's wearing the latest fashion in Extra Vehicular Activity-wear.

Because of an air-tight, gold-coloured mask, he doesn't say very much, but he's perfectly happy to pose for photographs as you take in the Rocket Garden, wait for an IMAX movie or go shopping in the Space Shop.

A word of warning though about the Space Shop - I went in there with very good intentions (just to get a few postcards to send back to my friends in Blighty) and came out a good hour later with nearly $300 of items I just couldn't resist. My advice is to give your wallet to a friend who is willing to wait outside while you venture in. You have now been warned!

The two IMAX theaters show films all day long with shows starting every hour and are a great way to kill time while waiting to take a tour of Cape Canaveral.

Explorer

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Alternatively you can Explore the Space Shuttle "Explorer" orbiter on display. It is a full-size replica of an orbiter which the public can enter and see for themselves.

Other Attractions

The Visitors Complex also includes the Nature and Technology display alongside the Universe Theater, the Astronaut Memorial where you can see the Space Mirror reflect the names of all the Astronauts lost in the name of space exploration and there is also Launch Status Center where you can monitor all current activity in space which NASA is involved in, such as a current Shuttle Mission or activity aboard "Alpha" - the International Space Station.

A number of Cafe's and Restaurants are available across the complex offering a wide variety of fares to suit your tastes.

There is a NASA Art Gallery, a Center for Space Education and even Conferencing facilities all within the Visitors Complex itself - and there are also facilities for younger visitors too.

Outside of the Visitors Complex you can take one of two 3-hour tours of the facilities:

NASA: Up Close Tour

The NASA: Up Close Tour is a tour of the facilities in use today in the preparation and Launching of a Space Shuttle.

The tour takes you to all of the facilities used to prepare the payloads and maintain the fleet of Shuttles themselves, such as the third-largest building in the world - the Vehicle Assemble Building (VAB) and the Launch Control Center.

It takes you out to the Observation Gantry at Launch Complex 39 where you can get to within a mile of the two launch towers (LC-39A and LC-39B), which are used by Shuttles today. Unless you are an Astronaut or NASA technician, this is as close as anybody will ever get to the Launch Pads themselves.

Sadly the tour was unable to run the day of my visit because the facilities were a bit tied up still, after the Launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour on mission STS-97 having taken place just the night before.

Cape Canaveral: Then and Now Tour

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The Cape Canaveral: Then and Now Tour of Historic and current launch sites across the facility was the one I went on - and I can recommend it very highly indeed. The tour takes you to Launch Complex 5/6 where the Mercury Redstone's put the first and second Americans into space and you have a guided tour of the Launch Control bunker used for the Mercury-III launch.

Then you go to the Mercury Atlas launch site, and then on to the Gemini Titan sites.

The most moving part of the tour is Launch Complex 34 where the first Apollo crew perished in a fire in their Capsule and where the first manned Apollo mission was launched from.

From there you pass through the facility looking and learning about various other Launch Complexes on the site and you even get to see where the remains of the Space Shuttle "Challenger" were buried after her catastrophic explosion.

You eventually at the Saturn-V Center where there is a real, but never used, Saturn-V rocket on display for you to see in all its gargantuan glory. From the garden here you also get a pretty good view of the two Shuttle Launch Towers across the water, over three miles away.

At the end of your tour, you can visit the International Space Station complex where the various modules are being prepared for launch (at least the ones that America is sending up).

You can actually see the modules themselves in the clean-room. These modules will, eventually, be integrated into the Space Station itself. What you look at in this complex you will one-day look up into the night sky and see from almost anywhere in the world as the brightest, fastest moving, star.

Last modified: 2nd July 2001

© Ross B. Tierney, 2001.