NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building

I took these pictures on March 19 when hubby and I visited the Kennedy Space Center to watch the launch of Atlas V Ι SBIRS GEO 2. We were riding the Kennedy Space Center bus tour to reach the Apollo Saturn V area, the closest location in KSC to watch the launch. The bus tours usually pass by the Vehicle Assembly Building. There are select tours that guests are allowed to tour inside the VAB. As for me, haven't got the chance yet.

The Vehicle Assembly Building or VAB is important in the history of Science because this was built and used to assemble the Saturn V Rocket during the Apollo Program. This building is huge in fact; it is the largest single-story building in the world. Yep, it is only one story.

Later, I will show you how the Vehicle Assembly Building looks like from our neighborhood.  

The driver of the bus tour mentioned a lot of facts about this building including that the flag painted on the building is the largest in the world.

It is 209 feet high and 110 ft wide. Each star is 6 feet across and take note, that blue field on the flag that you see on the VAB, the size of that is like the size of a basketball court. That building is humongous.

The photo below was taken along the riverbanks of Indian River about 5 minutes from our place. I was using the zoom of my Samsung WB150F.

The last photo below is the normal caption. I was looking at the VAB which is really tiny.

That's all for now folks. If you are in Orlando, you should visit Kennedy Space Center and see the Vehicle Assembly Building yourself.

Indian River Florida

I love where we live right now. We are close by NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Indian River for boating and kayaking, Cocoa Beach for surfing, Port Canaveral Cruise Terminal and most of all, Orlando is just an hour away if we wanted to go to Universal Studios and Disney World. We lived in Orlando for years and traffic was terrible so; we decided to move nearby the beach and enjoy a peaceful week away from the hustle and bustle.

On this particular day, we were at a park along the Indian River banks. We were waiting for the launch of Space X Falcon 9 rocket and its Dragon spacecraft from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The colored black floating on the river are ducks. The launch was on this direction.

Below is the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) which is one of the largest buildings in the world. It was originally built for assembly of Apollo/Saturn vehicles and was later modified to support Space Shuttle operations. The building covers 3.25 hectares or 8 acres, that's how huge it is. Using the zoom lens of my camera, I was able to capture this photo from a long distance.

The Indian River is part of the Indian River Lagoon system which forms the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. It is shallow and about 195 km long. This is an estuarine system. Though this place is beautiful at sunrise and sunset, there is a foul smell that comes from the river.

At certain time like this day,  bridges have tended to impede the flow of red drift algae resulting in an odor of hydrogen sulfide in the area. Anyway, see the tiny building across the water? I am actually looking at the Vehicle Assembly Building across the water.