SAVINGS FOR FLORIDA RESIDENTS AT KENNEDY SPACE CENTER FLORIDA

THe Offer

Between May 1, 2024 – August 18, 2024, Florida residents can save on admission to the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex with a special offer!

For $159+tax, residents can pick up 4 tickets to use by August 18th. This is a savings of $141+tax if 4 adults visit or a savings of $130+tax for 2 adults and 2 children.

This ticket offer is only available at the park as you must show proof of Florida residency. You can do this by showing a valid Florida’s Driver’s License or utility bill.

How to Redeem

To redeem download and print off the ticket from the Kennedy Space Center Website. Arrive at the park! Walk past the self-service kiosks, the NASA Meatball and, the President Kennedy Presentation screen to the Will Call to Purchase the tickets.

What to do During Your Visit

The Kennedy Space Center has a lot to offer and thankfully, with Summer temps already upon us, most of the attractions are indoors!

Here are some of the things we think are must-do attractions!

1. Take the Bus tour. – We highly recommend the Bus tour and if you get into the park early, when it opens, you can check out the rocket garden for a few minutes before hopping in line for the first Bus out to the Apollo/Saturn V Center.
2. Apollo/Saturn V Center – The presentation at the Center will take you through the history of the Apollo Program from the failure of Apollo 1 through the climax of Apollo 11! See space suits, an actual Lunar Lander, a full-length Saturn V rocket and, much more!
3. Atlantis – After you get back from the Bus Tour you are just a short hop away from the building where Atlantis is housed. Follow the progression of the Shuttle’s development in a presentation that ends with the grand reveal of the Shuttle Atlantis!
4. Gateway – Within Gateway you will find more flown space hardware from a SPACEX CARGO DRAGON COTS-2, SPACEX FALCON 9 BOOSTER, to an ORION EFT-1 CAPSULE!
5. ALL SYSTEMS ARE GO! – If you have little ones, you should definitely see All Systems are Go a presentation by Snoopy, Charlie Brown and, their pals about the Artemis Program and future space flight.
6. Hero’s and Legend’s – Last on our list of must-do things, is the Hero’s and Legend’s building. Here you get a great presentation by the early astronauts and at the end, you get to explore the memorabilia from many astronauts and end up in the Astronaut Hall of Fame!

As you prepare for your visit to the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex, enjoy this video about Micahel Collins the Command Module Pilot on Apollo 11.

Fort Clinch – The Northernmost Fort on the East Coast of Florida

In addition to theme parks and beaches, Florida has several forts, including Fort Clinch which guards the entrance to the St. Mary’s River, and forms the northern border between Georgia and Florida. Learn more in our video about Fort Clinch.

Demo-2: First Crewed Flight in 9 Years

The day was July 8th, 2011. The Mission was STS-135, the final launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis and the last mission of the shuttle program. I remember walking down to the river in my hometown to catch a glimpse of this historic and bittersweet moment.

The Shuttle program had already been in full swing for nine years before I was born. It had already suffered the tragic loss of Shuttle Challenger and her crew. But it had come back, safer and stronger than before. I don’t remember my first shuttle launch; it was just a common part of my life growing up. In my family, we’d turn on the tv to watch the final minutes of the countdown before dashing out the front door and looking east to catch a glimpse of Columbia, Discovery, Atlantis, or Endeavour as they popped out from behind the trees and rocketed into space. Then we’d always wait to hear the sonic booms as the shuttle broke the sound barrier on its way into outer space.

One thing I was never able to see in person was the shuttle on its gliding flight to land at the Kennedy Space Center. But I heard it many a time. Following Columbia’s loss during reentry, it was reassuring to hear the BOOM BOOM that was capable of rattling you from sleep. It was reassuring because you knew the shuttle had safely transported her crew and cargo beyond our planet’s atmosphere and brought them home to earth again.

It was sad to see the Shuttle program come to an end. Some people have a favorite sports figure or musician. Growing up, I had a favorite shuttle. It was hard to imagine those majestic machines being relegated to museum pieces across the country. Never to see them strapped to an external tank and boosters, never again to see the fire that would burst from the engines as they roared to life, pushing them off the launch pad as they climbed higher and higher, leaving the gravity of earth for the weightlessness of space.

Little did I realize on that July afternoon in 2011 that not only was the shuttle program coming to an end, but it would be nine years before astronauts would lift off from the Space Coast.

Fast forward to today, and the landscape of space exploration looks quite different. It feels a bit like we have stepped back in time to the early days when Alan Shephard, aboard the Mercury-Redstone rocket, in a spacecraft named Freedom 7 became the first American to travel into space and the first man to manually control his ship in outer space. But while the new machine that will take men to space is not as exciting to me as the Shuttles, I am thrilled that astronauts will once again be lifting off from the Space Coast.

Let’s talk briefly about the launch.
With the Launch of SpaceX Demo-2, we will see several firsts.

1. The first launch of Astronauts from the USA in 9 years.
2. It will be the first time the Crew Dragon has carried a Crew into space.
3. It will be the first time a Commercial company will send a crew into space.
4. It will be the first US spaceflight mission not to include the presence of Public at the KSC visitors complex. Everyone will be much further away.
5. It will be the first 2-person only crew launched from the USA, since STS-4 in 1982
6. It will be the longest time the entire crew from a US spacecraft will stay at the space station. The crew is expected to remain from 1-3 months. (On a typical Shuttle mission, they remained for no more than two weeks.)
7. It will be the first time a crew capsule will splashdown in the Atlantic. (All previous capsule splashdowns have occurred in the Pacific.)

The crew – 2 astronauts
The Demo-2 mission’s crew has been with NASA since 2000 and are both veterans of the Shuttle Program. In fact, the spacecraft commander, Douglas Hurley, was Shuttle Atlantis’s pilot on the final mission, STS-135, in 2011. It seems only fitting that one of the crew from that final flight should hold the distinction of being among the first to return to space. Alongside Hurley is Robert Behnken, the joint operations commander of the flight. This will be the third flight into space for both men. There is not a specific date for their splashdown in the Atlantic. The crew is expected to dock with the ISS and remain there for 1 to 4 months.

The Falcon 9 rocket that will carry Hurley and Behnken into space will lift off from Launch Complex 39A, or as we call it, Pad 39A.
This launchpad has been in service, with modification, of course, since the first Saturn V launch carried the unmanned Apollo 4 spacecraft into space in 1967. All of the crewed Apollo missions, beginning with Apollo 8, used Pad 39A. The pad was reconfigured for the Shuttle program, and STS-1, the first flight of the Shuttle Program, christened the pad in 1981. It was the sight of the first 24 launches of the shuttle program. 39A would also be the location of the final Shuttle launches, culminating in the launch of Atlantis in 2011. But the history of 39A lives on, as it from here that SpaceX has already launched several historic flights, and it is from here that Demo-2 will blast off carrying Americans into space from American soil once again.

Do you want to watch it for yourself? Watch the video here.

Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse and its Military history

In Jupiter, Florida, there is a 108-foot lighthouse standing 146 above sea level in plain sight; it is hard to miss this tower in the sky. Yet few know the role this Lighthouse and its position along the Florida coast has played in history. Let me explain.

This Lighthouse was designed in 1855 by George Meade, the same man who would defeat General Lee’s army at Gettysburg. Meade had anticipated it would take a crew of 20 men working around the calendar a year to build the light and at the cost of $35,000. However, the construction of the Lighthouse took several years to complete. This was due to factors such as the 3rd Seminole War interrupting work and the inlet’s silting shut, which caused supplies to be offloaded from large ships to smaller sloops in 35 miles out in the Indian River Inlet.

Construction finally began under Edward A. Yorke’s supervision in January of 1860. By mid-May, the tower had risen to its height of 108 feet. Yorke is credited with personally calibrating the Fresnel lens in the light. This lens is 1 of only 13 active First-Order Fresnel lenses in the entire United States today. The first official lighting of the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse took place on July 10th, 1860.

There is a lot of history surrounding this Lighthouse, but let’s look at just a few of the interesting points. The Lighthouse was built because near Jupiter Inlet “to mark the dangerous shoals lying off that point and guide vessels along that coast.” Some of the boats that were guided by the light in the 1860s were those of Confederate blockade runners and the Union gunboats that were patrolling for them.

In August 1861, former Assistant Keeper of the Lighthouse, Augustine Lang, sent the Keeper, Joseph Papy, on his way to Key West, while they disabled the light. The Jupiter Inlet light would remain dark until the end of the War between the States. It would not be relit until June 28th, 1866. It has been an active navigation aid from that day to this.

The Lighthouse had a military presence for much of its history. The Navy had a Naval Radio Station, and the Coast Guard built a D/F of High-frequency direction-finding station nearby. With the onset of War in Europe in 1939, the Navy established an intelligence listening post at Jupiter Inlet. By April of 1940, the US had abandoned any pretext of neutrality, and the Jupiter Inlet post was acknowledged as an interceptor and D/F Station.

The post’s official name was The Communications Radio Intelligence Unit and Radio Direction Finding Station, also known as “Station J”. You might wonder why the US needed a Radio intelligence unit along the coast of Florida. German U-boats had been hunting tankers and cargo ships that were headed from South American and US Ports to sink their cargo before it could be transported to Britain or other European Allies. The U-boats were having a hay day, sinking boats off the coast of Florida. It is believed that the U-boats are credited with sinking some 70 ships in the Gulf and along the Florida coast.

Station J’s job was to intercept the radioactivity of the U-boats when they would surface during the night to charge their batteries and send messages home. These intercepted messages were used to warn Allied ships and led to the sinking of many U-boats. This included 67 that were destroyed along the Florida coast from May to June of 1941. Station J was decommissioned on July 15th, 1945.

The Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse Museum is housed in the last remaining Married quarters building on the property and is where you will pay your admission to climb the light.

Many places around Florida have such unique historical importance that few people know about. If you are interested in learning more about Florida’s history, you can check out the other videos on the channel and leave a comment telling us what you would like to see or read about next.

Watch the video here.

Henry Ford’s Connection to Charcoal

The other day I was using Kingsford Charcoal to grill hamburgers and hot dogs, little realizing that there was more to the Kingsford brand, including its connection with a well-known car manufacturer in the 1920s and 30s.

You heard that right. The history of Kingsford Charcoal Briquets and a car manufacturer go hand in hand.  

Henry Ford (July 30, 1863 – April 7, 1947) was an American industrialist and business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that middle-class Americans could afford, he converted the automobile from an expensive curiosity into an accessible conveyance that would profoundly impact the landscape of the 20th century. From Wikipedia

Wikipedia gives an adequate summary of Henry Ford, but there is so much more to the man than the Ford Motor Brand and the assembly line system that he formed. There is also charcoal.

While Ford cannot claim the title of inventor or patentor of the Charcoal Briquettes, that distinction goes to Ellesworth B. A. Zwoyer, who patented the first briquettes in 1897, Ford was the first to commercial market the product. But why? Why would a man who was involved in the auto industry have anything to do with charcoal?

It’s simple. It comes down to cost and the environment. Henry Ford was at heart a businessman, but he also sought to make good use of everything that went into the building his cars. One of those things was wood. About 100 board feet of wood went into every Model T Ford. From the Steering wheel to the dash, the frame, etc.

The Ford Model T was named the most influential car of the 20th century in the 1999 Car of the Century competition, ahead of the BMC Mini, Citroën DS, and Volkswagen Type 1. Ford’s Model T was successful not only because it provided inexpensive transportation on a massive scale, but also because the car signified innovation for the rising middle class and became a powerful symbol of the United States age of modernization. With 16.5 million sold, it stood eighth on the top ten list of most sold cars of all time, as of 2012. – wikipedia)

Ford wanted to own a source of wood, so he would not be at the mercy of suppliers or every fluctuating costs. Henry Ford had a cousin who was married to Edward G. Kingsford, a Real Estate agent in Michigan. Kingsford was able to help Ford obtain a stretch of timberland, the Iron Mountain, in Michigan, to be exact.

The trees were cut and sent to the sawmill Ford built in Iron Mountain, before the wood was shipped to the assembly line in Michigan. 

But something bothered Henry Ford. In addition to being a clever businessman, Ford was also a lover of nature, but that is a story for another time, and it bothered him to see so much wasted wood in his sawmill. There were lots of leftover stumps, branches, and loads of sawdust. It was during a camping trip that Ford is said to have realized he could make charcoal from the scrap wood and dust in his sawmill. 

Ford’s friend, Thomas Edison, designed the briquette factory adjacent to the sawmill, and it was Kingsford who ran the operation.

Originally the product was sold exclusively through Ford Dealerships, and by the mid-1930s, Ford was even selling “Picnic Kits” that contained charcoal and a portable grill.

Following Ford’s death, Henry Ford the Second sold the Charcoal business in 1951 to an investment group who renamed the business Kingsford Charcoal in honor of Edward G. Kingsford.  

So the next time you strike a match and light your charcoal Briquet, whether they are Kingsford or another brand, remember you have Henry Ford to thank for marketing the Charcoal Briquets.

Watch the Video here

SpaceX Demo-2 Launch

The day was July 8th, 2011. The Mission was STS-135, the final launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis and the last mission of the shuttle program. I remember walking down to the river in my hometown to catch a glimpse of this historic and bittersweet moment. The Shuttles program had already been in full swing for nine years before I was born. It had already suffered the tragic loss of Shuttle Challenger and her crew. But it had come back, safer and stronger than before. I don’t remember my first shuttle launch; it was just a common part of my life growing up. In my family, we’d turn on the TV to watch the final minutes of the countdown before dashing out the front door and looking east to catch a glimpse of Columbia, Discovery, Atlantis, or Endeavour as they popped out from behind the trees and rocketed into space. Then we’d always wait to hear the sonic booms as the shuttle broke the sound barrier on its way into outer space.

Space shuttle Atlantis is seen as it launches from pad 39A on Friday, July 8, 2011, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla. The launch of Atlantis, STS-135, is the final flight of the shuttle program, a 12-day mission to the International Space Station. Photo Credit: (NASA/Bill Ingalls)

One thing I was never able to see in person was the shuttle on its gliding flight to land at the Kennedy Space Center. But I heard it many a time. Following Columbia’s loss during reentry, it was reassuring to hear the BOOM BOOM that was capable of rattling you from sleep because you knew the shuttle had safely transported her crew and cargo beyond our planet’s atmosphere and brought them home to earth again.

It was sad to see the shuttle program come to an end. Some people have a favorite sports figure or musician. Growing up, I had a favorite shuttle. It was hard to imagine those majestic machines being relegated to museum pieces across the country. Never to see them strapped to an external tank and boosters, never again to see the fire that would burst from the engines as they roared to life, pushing them off the launch pad as they climbed higher and higher, leaving the gravity of earth for the weightlessness of space.

Little did I realize on that July afternoon in 2011, that not only was the shuttle program coming to an end, but it would be nine years before astronauts would lift off from the space coast.

STS 135 moments before touching down at the Kennedy Space Center for the final time.

Fast forward to today, and the landscape of space exploration looks quite different. It feels a bit like we have stepped back in time to the early days when Alan Shephard, aboard the Mercury-Redstone rocket, in a spacecraft named Freedom 7 became the first American to travel into space and the first man to manually control his ship in outer space. But while the new machine that will take men to space is not as exciting to me, as the shuttles, I am thrilled that astronauts will once again be lifting off from the Space Coast.

Let’s talk briefly about the launch.
With the Launch of SpaceX Demo-2, we will see several firsts.

1. The first launch of Astronauts from the USA in 9 years.
2. It will be the first time the Crew Dragon has carried a Crew into space.
3. It will be the first time a Commercial company will send a crew into space.
4. It will be the first US spaceflight mission not to include the presence of Public at the KSC visitors complex. Everyone will be much further away.
5. It will be the first 2-person only crew launched from the USA, since STS-4 in 1982
6. It will be the longest time the entire crew from a US spacecraft will stay at the space station. The crew is expected to remain from 1-3 months. On a typical Shuttle mission, they remained for no more than two weeks.
7. It will be the first time a crew capsule will splashdown in the Atlantic. (All previous capsule splashdowns have occurred in the Pacific.)

The crew of the Demo-2 mission has been with NASA since 2000 and are both veterans of the Shuttle Program. In fact, the spacecraft commander, Douglas Hurley, was the pilot of shuttle Atlantis on the final mission, STS-135, in 2011. It seems only fitting that one of the crew from that final flight should hold the distinction of being among the first to return to space. Alongside Hurley, is Robert Behnken, the joint operations commander of the flight. This will be the third flight into space for both men. There is not a specific date for their splashdown in the Atlantic. The crew is expected to dock with the ISS and remain there for 1 to 4 months.

Demo-2 Artwork – Spacex.com

The Falcon 9 rocket that will carry Hurley and Behnken into space will lift off from Launch Complex 39A, or as we call it, Pad 39A. This launchpad has been in service, with modification, of course, since the first Saturn V launch carried the unmanned Apollo 4 spacecraft into space in 1967. All of the crewed Apollo missions, beginning with Apollo 8, used Pad 39A. The pad was reconfigured for the shuttle program, and STS-1, the first flight of the Shuttle Program, christened the pad in 1981. It was the sight of the first 24 launches of the shuttle program. 39A would also be the location of the final Shuttle launches, culminating in the launch of Atlantis in 2011. But the history of 39A lives on, as it from here that SpaceX has launched several historic flights and it is from here that Demo-2 will blast off carrying Americans into space from American soil once again.

Let’s watch it together

Live – SpaceX on Wednesday the 27th at 4:33 pm EDT

Backup launch dates Saturday, May 30 at 3:22 p.m. EDT and Sunday, May 31 at 3:00 p.m. EDT.

My vantage point will be available on Youtube on the day following the launch.

Enjoy!

Crossing the Florida Straits by Air in 1913

Wilbur and Orville Wright took flight in a plane at Kitty Hawk for the 1st flight in history in 1903. At the time, a young man, Domingo Rosillo del Toro, was 25 years of age. Little could he imagine at the time that he would be a record-setting pilot in the years ahead.

Wright Brothers

Over the next few decades, pilots would set records that people had never thought possible. Today, of course, we take for granted that planes can fly long distances, they can refuel in the air, they can travel faster than the speed of sound, they can carry vast amounts of cargo, and drop that cargo with precision in places that are in inaccessible by plane. Back in 1903, that wasn’t the case, and in the decades following, many aviators set records for the firsts in aviation history.

The first flights were flown overland. While this was dangerous in the event of a crash, more treacherous still was to travel over water.

It was Frenchman Louis Bleriot who would make one of the first trips over water. His adventure would-be a record-setting flight. The water he would cross? The 21 miles over the English Channel. He succeeded in doing this in 1909, just six years after the first man flew for 120 feet at Kitty Hawk.

But as with most adventurers, they’re always looking for something else to do; another record they can break. One the next challengers afforded to them was the opportunity to cross the Florida Straits. Now the Florida Straits is the water that runs between Key West and Cuba for a distance of 90 miles. In 1911, the city of Havana and a Havana newspaper decided to sponsor the first Cuban air meet, offering $8000 to the first man to cross the treacherous Florida Straits.

Canadian Captian James Mccurdy was one of the first to attempt the flight. With US Navy destroyers Rose, Drayton, Reed, and Terry stationed at 20-mile intervals to guide his way by their smoke, he took off from Key West. He flew over two destroyers before being forced to make an emergency landing in the choppy waters just 10 miles short of Havana.

While this was a sad loss for him, his failure left the Florida Straits open for other pilots to make their name in history. The next two adventuresome pilots who would try were two men of Cuban descent. As an added incentive, the prize had been boosted to $10,000.

The two men with viable chances of success were Domingo Rosillo del Toro, who was born in 1878 to Cuban parents, and Augustin Parla, born in 1887 in Key West.
While both men did succeed in making the voyage, though separated by two days, we will focus on Rosillo.

Both men prepared to fly across the Florida straits in May 1913. The starting point is Key West, FL. Parla had bought a Curtiss seaplane, while Rosillo reportedly purchased a MORANE-SULNIER monoplane though some reports say it was a different plane Rosillo purchased, a Bleriot XI.

Rosillo chose May 17th as the day for his flight. Learning of this, his opponent, Parla, decided to try on that day too. However, Parla wasn’t able to take off. The men took off from opposite sides of the island. Unfortunately, high winds caused Parla’s float to rupture and snap the wires secured their wings, and so he was delayed by two days.

Domingo Rosillo del Toro

Rosillo’s plane had an open cockpit and weighed less than 1000 pounds. He had only a small compass for directions and no flotation device to protect him in case of a water landing. Before taking off for Cuba, the mayor of Key West gave him letters to take to Havana. So he technically set two records; that of making the longest flight across the water, and that of the longest mail delivery service over water.

Rosillo finished the flight in over 2 hours (2 hours 4) minutes to be exact). The same flight would take a jet plane about 20 minutes to complete today. However, Rosillo was only traveling at about 40 mph through turbulent conditions. Flying over the outskirts of Havana, Rosillo’s fuel was gone, the engine overheated, and some people say that he had a monkey on board. There is no conclusive evidence of this, but it is a popular rumor. Upon arriving, Rosillo was met by a military gun salute at the nearby Havana fortress.

Rosillo’s pioneering spirit is what America is made of. He showed that spirit by risking his life to span the gulf between his new homeland and that of his ancestors. His name should be remembered in both American and Cuban history.

The American Space Museum

The American Space Museum is a small Space Museum located in down town Titusville, less than a mile from great river side launch viewing.

The museum has a collection of items from all eras of the space program from the early days of the space race to flight control panels that were used during the Shuttle program.

Enjoy the video below and then visit when you can!

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Enjoy!

Aimee