Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral

Few days ago I was invited by NASA together with several engineering faculty members through the country, to a workshop on teaching systems engineering to our students. This meeting took place at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the birthplace of space exploration.

The following are some pictures from the Kennedy Space Center taken during the workshop as well as the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station open to the public through NASA’s tours.

One of the three main Shuttle engines being transported and ready to be assembled into the Orbiter.



Launch Complex 39A, from which the Shuttle is normally launched. As of right now, there are only two more Shuttle flights scheduled before the program ends.




Blockhouse for Launch Complex 26 from which the first US Satellite, Explorer, was launched.



Commemorative plaque outside Launch Complex 5/6 from which Alan Sheppard was launched, making the first US suborbital manned space flight.



The first US human in Earth’s Orbit was John Glenn who was launched from Launch Complex 14.


This statue is located just outside of Launch Complex 14 honoring the Mercury 7 astronauts.


There is only a single light in this part of The Cape; it was placed after Tom O’Malley, the launch conductor for the Mercury flights went to work before dawn and complained that he could not find his turn to Launch Complex 14 because of the darkness. NASA and the Air Force installed the light at the entrance of the Complex and left it on for him. The light remained on until his death in 2009.


Complex 34 was where the tragedy of Apollo I occurred, killing the three astronauts in the fire as they were on the ground testing the spacecraft.


A plaque at the bottom of the structure remembers them.


The Apollo Guidance Computer installed in both the Command Module and Lunar Module. All the interactions with the AGC were purely numerical with two types of codes: “Verb” to describe the type of action to be performed and “Noun” to specify the data affected by the Verb.

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