Disney/ NASA Florida

Disney and NASA
18^th May 2001

Paul, Adie and I drove up the state to Orlando. Disney world has a big complex there which covers as area of approximately 20 miles long by 10 miles wide. Within this area are five distinct theme parks, Magic Kingdom,Epcot, Disney MGM Studios and Disney Animal Kingdom. My choice was the later as I had seen a presentation on TV about the park.

Some of you would of heard of the “Tree of Life”. This tree with 325 animals depicted in its trunk stands 14 stories tall. Old Walt was a clever old bugger and designed the parks with themes within themes. Africa, Asia, Dinoland etc, each one takes up to an hour to see all the exhibits plus take in a show. The Kilimanjaro Safari entailed about 40 people riding on the back of an open truck and driving through the Savannah. Elephants, lions, giraffes, Hippos<>

By 4.30 we were Disneyed out and set off for the Atlantic Coast to find accommodation for the night. My headache was starting at 3 pm and I attributed it to lack of fluids in the heat. 2 Panadol helped for a while but my unwellness came back with vengeance. At about 6 pm I had nausea, diarrhea and vomiting for a couple of hours with a high temp. I haven’t been so crook in years. I blamed Adie for poisoning me but she reckoned we all ate the same tucker all day, I’m not sure what went wrong.

Slept for eight hours and felt good again next morning. A safe fart and burp on the beach cleared my thoughts and bowel before breakfast. The sea turtles are in egg laying season at present. One was washed up on the high tide mark, dead. She had recently died and when I flipped here over on to her wheels the cause of death was instantly revealed. The back half of her shell was ripped away most probably caused by coming into contact with a boat propeller.

The Kennedy Space Center is located about half way up the Atlantic Coast of Florida. The Federal Government has acquired the entire Cape over the last 40 years and have set it up as the launch site for its space program. No expense has been spared over the years. The roads are top class duel carriage ways. I’m starting to get used to this now, and most of the old launch pads have been retained as a living museum. Paul and I went on a “then and now tour” which took us to the sites and control rooms of the Mercury Flights which sent John Glenn into space. To stand in the control room and sit in the chair of the controller was something special. All analogue controls and dials. A commentary was given by an astronaut who knew his stuff, he gave mind boggling overview of the space center. You need to imagine this center is spread out over 25 miles long and 10 miles deep. It is surrounded by sea and connected to the mainland by a three mile causeway. As launch sites become redundant, new sites are developed to meet the advances being made in the size and shape of the rockets. Try to imagine along the coast between Hokitika and Greymouth, towers about thirty stories high, spaced about five miles apart, (without mountains behind them), it is very hard to gauge there size. On this tour you are able to walk underneath and see the burn marks on the grounds where the big birds departed. Rockets that will be departing for outer space require different launch sites that the Shuttle. They are trying to make these launch sites multi purpose to accommodate the vast array of rockets being launched. I think one of the new sites can accommodate ten different rocket types.

The Shuttle program is something else. Massive is too small a word to describe it. The main Vehicle Assembly Building is the biggest building on the Cape and can be seen for miles. It is in the top ten biggest buildings in the world. Until you are underneath the enormous structure it is very difficult to judge its size, nothing close to compare. On the side of the building they have painted a US flag. The dimensions of one of the stars on the painted flag is eight feet from apex to apex. The big roller doors to allow the Shuttle to enter upright, takes 45 minutes to open.

About a month before launch of the Shuttle it is connected to the Rockets that power her and the whole unit is transported out to the Launch Pad on a massive crawler trolley which travels at 1 mph. Each cleat of the carriage weights one tonne, and there are several hundred of those alone. You can tell by my rambling that I was impressed. I’ll cut this short and rabbit on a bit about the presentation on the moon landing with the Apollo Rockets.

Fantastic display.

The size of the Apollo Rocket would reach across Cass Square no trouble. The tiny capsule which sustained life from here to the moon and return is so small, about the size of our Conservatory in Kaniere.The y were crammed in there with all that instrumentation. The movie depicted how close the first moon landing was to being aborted.
Computer failure and too fast. The Yanks are very proud of their achievements and are not afraid to blow their own trumpets.

We spent six hours at Kennedy Space Center and were spaced out after that. There was a hell of a lot more to be seen but another time ah. It’s great what you talk about in the car while traveling. Paul was handing around breath fresheners and I declined because they reminded me of the taste liniment or deep heat.

I had told Paul about my misadventure on my honey moon a with a burn that incapacitated me. Paul’s story goes like this. Over here you can get Squirrel resistant bird seed that the squirrels will leave alone. The ingredient in the bird seed is Hot Chili Pepper seed. Apparently birds cant taste hot seeds while squirrels are very discerning and will reject seeds put out with any hint of hot peppers, like Jalapeno. Paul feeds the birds by grabbing a handful of seeds and placing it in the outside bird feeder.

Shortly after he needed to relieve himself and was startled that the hot peppers had transferred from his hands to hi pee pee. In his exasperation to relive the pain he jumped into the shower only to find the hot water and soap made the situation much worse. He was living with his granny at the time and could not ask for assistance. He said that he could only breathe in and that the pain was excruciating. I feel very sorry for him but accidents like this must run in the family.

Instead of returning the way we came, we traveled down the Atlantic Coast towards Miami. If you have a map you can see a big lake called Okeechobee, a man made lake which irrigates the central plains, sugar cane, corn and citrus orchards everywhere.

This trip amounted to about 600 mile. We need to rest for a day before going deep sea fishing and then horse riding.

I wonder what will happen next.

Alvin