Viewing Space Shuttle Discovery

[Kellit1964]

My family and I will be cruising from Port Canaveral in a few weeks. Although we would love to tour Kennedy Space Center, we just will not have the time to do so. My question is does anyone know if there is a place that we can drive to that would allow us to view the Space Shuttle that NASA recently placed on the launch pad. Obviously we know we would be quite some distance away, but hopefully could at least see it using binoculars.

 

Thanks!

 

Kelli

[Capt_BJ]

actually from the top deck of the ship you have a clear line of sight to the pad. With the service tower in place you won't really see much of the shuttle but you'll sure see the pad, the assembly building etc.

 

You can drive closer by just driving to the visitor center but unless you get height of eye you won't see anything you won't see from the ship.

 

Pads are nearly due north 13.5 miles from the piers

[Kellit1964]

Appreciate the information!

[Johncn]

Hi,

 

If you wanted to drive to see the typical view of the shuttle on the pad, you could do that, but as the other poster said, it's unlikely to be impressive seen from ship due to how far around the cape from PC it is, and the curve of the earth over that 13 or so miles, and the service tower being in the way (probably).

 

The more impressive view would be to drive to Titusville and view it across the lagoon. There are car rental places with shuttle service of the four-wheeled kind in Cape Canaveral.

 

A great day (you don't specify how long you have or time of day) would be drive up through NASA to Titusville and back, then hit the beach at Jetty Park (parking fee, but great beach) or Cocoa Beach (10 minute drive) with your remaining time.

 

NASA used to allow late in the day visitors to go to the NASA Visitor's Center around 5:00 or so and ask for admittance to gift shop. It was free, but you only had a hour or something.

 

We would take family there, and get some NASA Astronaut Ice Cream, pins and shirts, but also walk in the Rocket Garden monuments with the old actual vehicles and engines by the shop itself. Very impressive place to take pictures and so on. I'm not sure they still allow that, but there is full size mock up of the shuttle there that might be very interesting to see from outside.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Johncn

[andiloveu]

Port Canaveral is one of our stops on the Enchantment of the Seas. I have a question about the space center. Is it cheaper to get a cab and go to the space center ourselves or should we pay the cruise line price with the shuttle? Should we get the tickets ahead of time or just wait till we get there?