I though you might like to see a few picture in the form of a diary from my course at Kennedy Space Centre.  We were treated as VIPs by NASA and were lucky enough to have access to almost all areas, many of which are not available to tourists.   So I'll start with a big thank you to all at NASA.

There are lots of pics so you'll need  patience for them to download.

Day 1

Minibus trip from Norwich to Manchester.  Friday afternoon of a bank holiday weekend.   It took over seven hours!  I hope this is the worst part of the trip.  

Day two

We took a sub-orbital flight in a Boeing 767 to Chicago, O'Hare.   It took nine hours.   We flew over Greenland and saw the glaciers and icecap.  If the greenhouse effect melts it all , Norfolk will disappear under the ocean.

Chicago.   That's not the sea - that's Lake Michigan!

After a five hour wait, we boarded a plane for another two hour flight to Florida.   When we got out of the airport it was so hot and humid it was like entering a bathroom.  We are staying at the Wakhula Motel on Cocoa Beach.  I'm sharing a suite with three other Norfolk teachers.  There are two bedrooms a lounge-diner and a kitchen with a fridge the size of my car!

Day three

It's Sunday so we spent it exploring the countryside around the Kennedy Space Center.   Apart from the odd Rocket Launch pad it's a huge wildlife reserve.   We saw all sorts of birds and three big (12ft+) alligators.  We finished the day with a swim in the ocean.  

Day Four

We set off at 7.45am for our first day  at the Kennedy Space Centre.   After being searched at security  we entered the Centre for Space Education - our base for the week.

Our classroom is an Aladdin's cave of treasures.   Photographs of shuttle crews line the walls.  Bits of Apollo and shuttle hardware are everywhere.

NASA educator Damon Talley demonstrated the insulating ability of shuttle tiles.  I bought a piece of tile from the Space Shop to let you all have a go back at school.

Day Five

I tried on Jim Lovell's gloves and an original Apollo flight suit.   I was sooo excited!

Last time a came to Kennedy I was a tourist and had to stay in the bus at the Vertical Assembly Building (VAB ) in which the Saturn V were, and the shuttles are put together.  It is one of the biggest volume buildings in the world.   The stripes on the flag are each as wide as a road.   This time I was taken inside and given a tour by a NASA engineer.   He confirmed that it really can rain inside the building when it's dry outside.

  The inside of the VAB was like an enormous cathedral to science and technology

There  were parts ready to assemble the next shuttle including the nose pieces of a pair of solid rocket boosters.

We were bussed out to Pad A, one of two launch sites for the shuttle (the other being Pad B!)  However Pad A has the distinction of being the site for all of the Apollo launches.

 Unlike the tourists we were allowed out to walk up the crawler way.   The massive moving platform that transports the shuttle (and before that the Moon rockets) spans both gravel roads.  We were told it uses 600 gallons of fuel to travel 1 mile!

Astronaut Brian Duffy talked to us about his experiences in space.  I asked him if he had even noticed anything unusual about the lack of convection in weightless conditions.  His answer fascinated all of us.  You can read about it in Astronauts Talk Science.

And it didn't stop there.  In the evening we went to the Brevard County College Observatory and Planetarium.   We saw a presentation on space.  Luckily the planetarium chair gave me a bad back and I missed the second presentation - a musical one .   I say luckily because I went up to the observatory instead.  They have a beautiful 24inch Richey-Chretien scope.  The seeing wasn't too good but we watched the red spot on Jupiter.  By the time everyone else came up from the planetarium the clouds had rolled in but most managed a glimpse of the Jovian system through breaks in the cloud.

Day Six

I started the day with a walk across the gantry that all of the Apollo astronauts used to get into their spacecraft.   Think of it. Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked this route and their next walk was on the surface of the Moon.

How do you top that?   You go the International Space Station!   Here I am looking at the reusable Leonardo element of the International space station being readied to supply the station.

The most commonly asked question to astronauts is how do you go to the toilet in space. So I took a picture  for you all.   The answer is strap yourself in to this - a toilet in the International Space Station.  No, I didn't have a go.

After finding out about the current space developments with the ISS we plunged back into the history of space flight by visiting the Saturn V centre.  Here you start with a simulated launch of the largest rocket ever to be launched.  The firing room is the original re-housed and wired together to give a faithful recreation of the event.

And then in the main hall you meet one of the three remaining Saturn Vs.  All 363ft of it!  

All that rocket to get this.   A chance to touch Moon rock (and other people if your not careful!)

I think we had lunch but I'm not sure because we were whisked off to see an IMAX film in 3D about the International Space Station.  It used polarised light so that we saw it in full colour.   Brian Duffy, the astronaut we met yesterday was in it, but much bigger than I remember.

Day 7

We started the day with a walk around the 'Rocket Garden'.   Instead of gnomes they've got rockets.  Big rockets and lots of them.  As the 'First 8' Norfolk teachers on the NASA course we posed by a Saturn 1B rocket for our sponsor.

Then it was back on the bus for a tour of historic launch sites.   We started off with the sites of the first manned  American rocket in space.  On May 5 1961 Alan Shepard took off from where this replica now stands.  

They even let me in firing room but told me not to touch anything.   I wonder what this big red button does? 

After lunch we had a great talk by NASA engineer Maggi Dutzcak.   Maggi is in charge of the Shuttle orbiter engines but has also been helping to recover the wreckage of the Columbia.  I think you'll find her very interesting so I'll include lots of detail in the NASA People page.

Then it was off to see a talk by  retired astronaut Captain Jon McBride.   Captain McBride was the Pilot of Space Shuttle STS-41G in October 1984.  As well as space he talked about the importance of students doing their homework if they want to succeed.  He was especially pleased when I told him I was a science teacher.

The last thing we did was make paper rockets and launch them with compressed air.   I'll definitely be doing this with you back at school! Shame we won't be able to do it against a backdrop of giant rockets.  You can see one of ours in flight in the picture.  It was good to end the course with a launch.

On the return flight we expected to fly over Greenland again just as the Sun was eclipsed by the Moon on the 31st of May.  There was great excitement on board but as the Sun set and it got dark (in mid Summer the Arctic never gets dark) we suspected that we were flying too far South.   When the Sun rose again there was no sign of the Moon. But we enjoyed the anticipation and the anticlimax did nothing to dim our enjoyment of the week.