one small step

A fun trip to NASA today. It's years since I was last here, but I still have the tee shirt. This time it was interesting to see how much the private sector has added to the activities around the complex.

There was the inevitable SPACEX presence, which is the Elon Musk initiative and gets plenty of news about its progress.

Here's a picture I took from their main launch facility, which is the updated old launch pad used by the main NASA missions to the moon and for the space shuttle. The concrete blast trenches were big enough to contain the power from a Saturn 5 rocket, so this is seriously rugged construction.

Towards the main entrance to NASA, there's also a couple of blue buildings. Blue Origin. That's the Jeff Bezos project. Not quite Amazon, it is by the Amazon founder and is actively using the Cape Canaveral side of the launch site. That's the part still under USAF control, rather than NASA.

Not so much to see, but still plenty happening.

The big events of the past are well featured inside NASA's halls in this still live facility. Last time I visited here the space shuttle was still active and we saw one on its way to the launch facility.

Now my picture shows Atlantis is in a museum. It has clocked about 126 million miles on 33 separate missions spread over 26 years. Impressive stuff and it is the real deal.

That is just scratching the surface of this impressive site. We shouldn't forget the moon landing or the many other incredible advances through the technology of space missions. Here's my photo of the giant leap and, yes, I've added a polo shirt to my collection.