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Spotlight USA: The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex Is a Spaceflight Junkie's Valhalla

Do you hate Disneyworld? Would you rather spend a day looking at a painting of a sad person crying instead of spending five minutes walking around the house of a mouse or one of its competing theme parks? Are you vacationing in Orlando regardless?
KSC Visitor's Complex 96 photos
Photo: Wikimedia User: Benoît Prieur - (Own work)
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If your answers are yes, heck yes, and unfortunately, yes, we've found something profoundly better for the kind people who frequent our website. This is the Kennedy Space Center Visitor's Complex. If not for a couple of overpriced monstrosities of mega theme parks, it'd be the star attraction in all of Central Florida.

We could go on all day about why KSC's Visitor Complex's dozens of exhibits are housed in a series of high school campus-sized buildings on the property of the larger Kennedy Space Center, itself an enormous 144,000 acres (580 km2) facility. Of which, only 42 acres are for average civilians to walk on. But we'll try to reduce our review to considerably less than all day. The complex opens every day at 9 am and closes at 5 pm, so we recommend getting up at the crack of dawn to avoid as many lines as possible.

Once you're inside with either a one-day, two-day, or annual entrance pass, you're immediately greeted with sights and sounds that could bring the inner space enthusiast out of even the most jaded and disinterested average Joes and Janes. The kind of folks who normally couldn't care less about anything space, or STEM related. The ambient music, seemingly straight out of a space drama, helps greatly with that.

There's something about seeing an enormous human-carrying rocket in person that's like seeing a Bugatti Chiron in real life. You're about as likely to see one of those in the flesh as any of these pristine and beautifully preserved boosters in KSC-VC's Rocket Garden at the park's front entrance.

Kennedy Space Center Visitor's Complex
Photo: Benny Kirk (With Permission from KSC)
Some of them may be one-to-one scale replicas, but you probably wouldn't even spot the difference if we hadn't told you. You can marvel at the grace and sophistication of the early ballistic missile-based first generation of manned booster rockets like Mercury-Atlas, Mercury Redstone, and the Titan II.

From there, you can gaze in amazement as design languages profoundly change with a new breed of purpose-built manned booster rockets like the Saturn IB, the little brother of the big kahuna Saturn V Apollo launch vehicle. Speaking of which, you'll need to take a 15-minute or so bus ride across a portion of KSC's 184 miles (296.11 km) of paved roads past the colossal Vehicle Assembly Building to get to that.

At the other end is the Apollo/Saturn V building, where you can get a close-up look of the real deal Saturn V and all its three stages, plus a host of other exhibits that'd satisfy an entire museum trip within itself. Once you get off that bus, you're in for spending the rest of the day exploring the history of NASA and the surrounding Cape Canaveral that the KSC calls home.

The Visitor's Complex takes you through time from the past into the future through authentic exhibits, invigorating interactive documentaries, and more gift shops than most wallets can brave in one day. In the Astronaut Hall of Fame within the larger Heroes & Legends building, the busts of the world's most successful astronauts are displayed for all to appreciate their accomplishments. You can even take a peep inside a legitimate Mercury space capsule.

Kennedy Space Center Visitor's Complex
Photo: Benny Kirk (With Permission from KSC)
At the Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit, you're made to watch a stunning short documentary detailing the Shuttle's development from paper mockups to a full-on fleet of orbiters before staring in awe at the preserved Shuttle Atlantis itself. Fancy an hours-long astronaut training experience? KSC-VC can accommodate you. At least, the closest approximation NASA can simulate in an afternoon. Although you'll have to register in advance.

Are you a fan of simulators? Well, both the Space Shuttle Atlantis and the neighboring NASA Gateway building are home to some of the finest civilian space simulators around. Whether you want to LARP as a Space Shuttle pilot or the captain of some futuristic Moon or Mars spaceship crew, it's all possible here, if not without waiting in a long line.

Indeed, ticket prices ranging between $75 and $90 for a two-day adult pass and slightly less for seniors, children, or military veterans is no small chunk of change. That doesn't even include the cost of food. But compared to Disneyworld or Universal Resort Orlando, where you sometimes feel as though they'd charge you for breathing if they could, the KSC Visitor's Complex always has its goals set on teaching, informing, and inspiring.

There are ample concessions galore, of course. Just like any self-respecting theme park or resort. Including a Red Rock Cafe with some impressively delicious chili dogs and inside the Apollo/Saturn V building with some surprisingly tasty chicken tenders. But the name of the game at
the Kennedy Space Center is exploration.

Kennedy Space Center Visitor's Complex
Photo: Benny Kirk (With Permission from KSC)
The very same mindset as the Artemis I SLS rocket sitting on LC-39B directly across from the Saturn V building. A spectacle many KSC-VC visitors are sticking around to watch take to the skies this coming Monday. Now that's the kind of vacation trip that satisfies our itch. Even on a work trip, it was one heck of a thrill

Check out more from our coverage of the Artemis I launch this Monday right here on autoevolution, and thanks for checking a long overdue edition of Spotllight USA.  
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