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Posted by: Analyst May 13 2005, 07:43 AM

I'm planning a visit to KSC this fall. The KSC website offers several guided tourist tours. I wonder if there are other possibilities to see places not openly accessible. I'm very interested in seeing the VAB from inside. Has anyone an idea (contact someone (Who?) in advance) or is there just no way to see more than the usual?

Thanks a lot.
Analyst

Posted by: Bob Shaw May 13 2005, 09:07 PM

Try and get in tow with your local radio station, or whatever - I can't speak for NASA today, but pre 9/11 if you had even a vague 'press' connection you could get into some surprising places! I attended the launch of STS-1 as a semi-press person and had some very interesting views of the pad and payload processing areas as a result.

Or make friends while there - I had a tour of the VAB interior many years ago as a result of such a contact, and somewhere have a series of internal panoramas made the old fashioned way, with glue and scissors... ...and I even got to look at the Viking 2 lander in the clean room!

A major reason for avoiding the standard bus tour is to get photos without fat tourists and green-tinted windows ruining the scene - they used to let you take a car, but again I can't say if that's current practice!

Posted by: Bob Shaw May 22 2005, 08:40 PM

And here's an on-topic post if ever there was one - that's me in my youth, standing next to the clean room window during July 1975 at the Titan laumchpad, with Viking 1 encapsulated in it's aeroshell behind me.

I'll try to find the panorama of the VAB, too...

Posted by: Bob Shaw May 22 2005, 08:41 PM

And here's an on-topic post if ever there was one - that's me in my youth, standing next to the clean room window during July 1975 at the Titan laumchpad, with Viking 1 encapsulated in it's aeroshell behind me.

I'll try to find the panorama of the VAB, too...

Posted by: garybeau May 24 2005, 10:47 PM

That's too much Bob. Just so you know.... I won't be posting any pictures of myself from 1975.

It's like when you read a book and you develop a mental picture of the characters, and then when the movie comes out they don't look anythink like you imagined. Well, you just ruined my mental image of you

Just kidding, I'm just envious it's you standing there and not me.

Gary

Posted by: Bob Shaw May 25 2005, 05:02 PM

I agree with you, and I'm also pleased that it wasn't you that got to stand there, too - even if I look like I don't remember being not somebody else... ...er...

Who's the long-haired youth in the foreground, though? (that's actually me in the bunny suit under the aeroshell, looking for somewhere to stow away during launch!)

Well, mebbe not...