The John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida is full of science, imagination and history. I’ve been to the Kennedy Space Center on two very different trips: as part of a family vacation and for an Astronaut Autograph & Memorabilia Show with my then nine-year-old son. Each visit was unique. And with everything offered at the Kennedy Space Center, it’s sure to have something for everyone, young and old.

Here’s what you need to know about visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Explore the Visitor’s Complex

After parking and getting your admission into the Kennedy Space Center, explore the visitors complex. You’ll find special exhibits related to the space program – like a model of a Mars rover or a mock-up of the Orion space capsule that will take humans to Mars.

One of the iconic parts of the complex is the Rocket Garden you’ll find several standing rockets from the programs history, along with a Saturn V rocket laying horizontal. It’d be too big to place vertical like its smaller predecessors.

Take a moment to visit the Astronaut Memorial, which is dedicated to all those who have lost their life to the dangers of space exploration.

You’ll also want to walk through the Heroes and Legends exhibit to learn about space pioneers John Glen, Alan Shepherd, and many other astronauts that paved the way to where we are today.

Take a Bus Tour of the Kennedy Space Center

A behind-the-scenes bus tour is one of the more popular attractions at the Kenned Space Center. The general bus tour starts operations at 9:30 a.m. and ends 2.5 hours before the visitor complex closes. The tours depart continuously from the bus depot at the visitor complex.

The 40-minute tour takes you to iconic sites like the Vehicle Assembly building, launchpad 39A and even the crawler that transported the rockets and shuttles from the VAB to the launchpad. You may also see some of the wildlife that calls the area home. Sadly, on this particular tour, you don’t exit the bus to explore the sites in greater detail. However, you can see how massive the VAB is as you pass nearby.

The tour concludes at the Apollo/Saturn V Center, which you’ll read about in the next section. Plan on about two hours for the tour and time at the Apollo/Saturn V Center.

The Kennedy Space Center does offer other tours for an additional ticket fee, which are listed on their website.

Relive the Launch of Apollo 8

After taking the bus tour around the Kennedy Space Center, you’ll end at the Apollo/Saturn V Center. For me and my son, this place was one of the highlights of the visit.

When you enter, you visit a firing room in launch control and each the moments leading up to the launch of Apollo 8 – the first manned launch of the Saturn V rocket. As the clock hits zero, you feel the rumble of the powerful rocket engines and see the glow in the windows overhead. From there, you make your way into the main hall.

The largest feature in the main hall is a full-sized Saturn V rocket. You can see the five engines at the end, and follow it through the hall to see the various stages and eventually the service module (SM), command module (CM) and lunar module (LEM). It’s crazy cool to think that’s what it took to blast humans out to the moon.

Along the way, you’ll see signs of each of the Apollo missions, beginning with the tragedy of Apollo 1 that killed three astronauts during a launch dress rehearsal. It concludes with a funny quote from Gene Cernan on Apollo 17, who was the last man to set foot on the moon (for now anyway). It read, “That last footprint on the moon? Check it out. It’s my boot size.”

There’s also a gift shop where you can purchase any mission patch imaginable, among other things. After you’ve had your fill, grab the return bus to the visitors complex.

Experience a Space Shuttle Launch

The final launch of the iconic space shuttle program took place on July 8, 2011 at launchpad 39A. While you wouldn’t be able to watch another shuttle launch, the simulator setup in the visitor complex next to the Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit puts you in the shuttle for a launch. My nine-year-old son opted out of riding in the simulator, so I went solo. It was neat to imagine sitting in an actual space shuttle, strapped in for safety, while launched into space. While I don’t have a real launch to compare it to, I thought it was fun nonetheless.

Next door to the simulator is the Space Shuttle Atlantis exhibit. It was completed after my visits to the Kennedy Space Center, so I have not been able to see it first-hand. But it will definitely be on my list the next time I can make my way out to the space coast.

WORD OF CAUTION: While it would be awesome to watch a launch at the Kennedy Space Center, don’t schedule your family vacation around a launch date. Within a week of booking a late-July family vacation to the Kennedy Space Center and then Disney World Resort, the space shuttle launch we had scheduled around got scrubbed (moved) to a month or two down the road. Since everything was booked, we still went. We enjoyed it, but witnessing a rocket launch is still on my bucket list.

Love visiting space-related historical sites? Here’s what Washington, DC, has to offer.

The Details

Address: Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, SR 405 Kennedy Space Center, FL 32899

Cost: Daily admission for adults (ages 12+) is $57. Children (ages 3-11) are $47. Seniors (ages 55+) is $50. Parking is $10 each vehicle. Multi-day and annual passes are also available. Add-on enhancements and experiences are available for additional costs.

Hours: Kennedy Space Center opens everyday at 9 am ET. The closing time varies between 6 pm and 7 pm depending on the month.

How Long: You should plan an entire day at the Kennedy Space Center. It is not possible, according to the website, to do more than one tour in a given day. Bus tours can last upwards of two hours, including waiting in line to board the buses.

Website: https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/

Phone: 1-855-433-4210

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