Kennedy Space Center

Aida, Andrea, Adriana and Dad here!

During this winter break we had the opportunity to visit the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. It was a fantastic day learning about NASA, the space race, the Apollo mission and the current Artemis mission. We even met an astronaut, Norm Thagard!

The girls wrote about what they learned (plus some online research they did)… 

Aida (currently a 6th grader):

The Space Race has always been one of the most intriguing and human changing competition’s of all time. That is why I was honored to have visited the Kennedy Space Center in Orlando where I got a deep dive into the space race. This is why I am here today to share with you one of the greatest competitions of all time, the space race.

Now let’s take a journey back in time to the year 1946 right when the second world war had ended. When a new idea arose, the idea of going to space. Immediately after the war the Soviet Union and the United States both started to latch onto this idea. Thus a new area of conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union arose. Who could get into space first? This conflict was called the Space Race. At first there were no set goals or what would count as, “winning,” the race. But on May 25, 1969 President John F. Kennedy announced that he wanted Americans to land on the moon before the Soviets. After that day it became clear that the space race was a race to see which nation could get a human on the moon first.

But let’s time travel back to when WW2 just ended where both countries announced that they would launch a satellite into space. Both countries worked hard testing new prototypes, ideas, and materials. But on October 4th, 1957 the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite into space, bringing humanity into space. 

But before John F. Kennedy made his speech, the Americans were falling far behind. The Soviets launched the first Satellite into Space, launched the first man into space (Yuri Gagarin), launched the first woman into space (Valentina Tereshkova), and had the first space walk. For the rest of the world the ideal of the United States winning the race seemed far away. But to the Americans all of these accomplishments by the Soviets drove them to work harder. 

In 1958 the Americans launched their first satellite into space, Explorer l, this was the same year that NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)  was created.

In 1959 the Soviets launched Luna 2, the first space vehicle to reach the moon. In April of 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit the earth.traveling in a space capsule called Vostok l. After that the U.S felt determined to launch a human into space. This project was called Project Mercury. The NASA engineers tested the spacecraft which was supposed to be a faster and lighter spacecraft than Vostok l. On May 5th of 1961 the successful launch of Project Mercury dubbed Alan Sheprd as the first american in space. Beating the Garagins launch the soviets were wanting to do. 

Later in May 1961 John F. Kennedy would make his space speech claiming that the Americans were going to land on the moon by the end of this decade. After this speech the world was turning their attention to the Americans. The idea of landing on the moon seemed so far-fetched. Everyone was taken aback by this bold speech, asking, “Is it really possible?” 

 But the Americans got their gears moving in the following months of the launch. The Americans sent the first human into orbit, (John Glen) and had a couple more launches. By the end of 1962 Americans dubbed the mission of sending a man to the moon, over 500,000 Americans worked on the project launching test rockets, engineering new prototypes and more. But in one of these test’s tragedy struck in January 1967 three astronauts were killed because of a fire in their rocket. This really made NASA contemplate if this mission is safe and possible? But they decided to keep working and learned from that accident, testing, engineering, modeling, simulating, and experimenting. Now it was the Soviets who had to catch up to a whole new possibility no one believed would happen. On July 16 1969, the astronauts Niel Armstorng,  Edwin Aldrin, and Michael. Boarded the perilous mission of Apollo 11. Everything was carefully calculated and planned from every inch but what if they made a mistake? All anyone could do was hope as the timer for the launch ticked down. Millions of Americans held their breath as the timer hit zero as the massive rocket disappeared into a tiny dot heading to the moon, and finally on July 20th 1969 Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon.

As he said, ”one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.”

Andrea (currently a 5th grader):

Yesterday I went to the Kennedy space center which is located in Cape Canaveral, FL. I thought it was really cool what we learned and did there. Kennedy Space Center is just Nasa but it has a different name.

Nasa uses 5% of all their 140k acres of land for launch pads and buildings. The rest is reserved for wild life like Crocodiles, Birds, pigs, deers, and Dolphins. 

In the 1950s nobody in history had ever gone to space, because of this the soviet union wanted to be the first to go to space. So in the 1960s they launched a person into space!  They crossed the world in only 109 minutes. 

The USA was jealous so they sent a person to space. They succeeded but they wanted to do something big because they thought that was not enough. They agreed on going to the moon with the Apollo program.  

During the Apollo 1 test, the cockpit got on fire which killed all 3 of the astronauts. It took them 1 and a half years to rebuild it.  During Apollo 8, they did the lap around the moon and back! Finally during Apollo 11, they landed on the moon. The US won the space race!

Visiting Nasa was really cool. I got to see rocket ships, play,  see crocodiles, and wild pigs. I had a lot of fun! You should visit it soon!

Adriana (currently a 2nd grader):

During Christmas I came to Orlando with my family. We did a lot of things including a Disney Cruise but also we went to the Kennedy space center.  In this place you can learn a lot of stuff.

I learned about the Apollo mission where they wanted to go to the moon. There were 17 missions to prepare for it. There was a race with the Soviet Union and they had a head start because they sent the first satellite and fist man in space.

Apollo I burned down and three people died. There was a fire in the cockpit. They checked every single part of the rocket to find the reason for the fire.

Apollo 8 was the first mission to orbit the moon. It was a success and the astronauts came back safely to earth.

Apollo 11 was the first mission where one astronaut touched the moon. It was Neil Armstrong and he said “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.”. 

I liked the NASA program a lot and I really want to see a rocket launch to space. I am looking forward to spaceships going back to the Moon through the Artemis program.

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