Behold the Vertical Assembly Building, built in 1966,
  STILL the tallest one story building in the
 world at 525 ft.  Those large grey doors on the
left side opened to allow the rollout of the huge
Saturn V rocket.   Also used for the shuttle program,
it’s ready for a beauty makeover should the need
arise for any future space traffic construction needs.
Explore:  to travel in or through an unfamiliar place
to learn about it or familiarize oneself with it.
A fitting word for the Kennedy Space Center entrance,
in front of the “Rocket Garden” of historic rockets and capsules. 

Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed Neil Armstrong
and Buzz Aldrin on the moon, the first humans ever.
We were able to walk down the same orange catwalk,
now significantly closer to the ground it was on
July 16, 1969 when we saw the launch.  The
crew had to walk across this at about 500 ft.!
Remember all those Mission Control guys with their
white shirts and headphones?  This is the actual panel from
 the Mercury capsule phase of the NASA Space Program,
back when John Glenn was the Captain in 1962. 
Mike and I trying out some cramped quarters for
flying.  At one point after his Air Force career,
NASA recruited him.   He was a great candidate,
with his physics and math background, but decided
against applying.  As it turns out, that’s when the
space program was starting to slow down, so he
could have waited years for a slim chance at a mission.

St. Louis was my home at the time of
the walk on the moon.  Everyone from
that era remembers being glued to our
little black and white televisions.

The impact of the Space Race was a fearful unknown.
Within weeks of Russia’s launch of the first man
into space in 1961, Kennedy was ready to announce
 America’s answer back to the challenge.
Mike under the massive Saturn V
rocket, a human-rated expendable
rocket used by NASA from 1966
until 1973.  A multi-staged liquid
fueled launch vehicle, it remains
the tallest, heaviest and most powerful
rocket ever brought to operational
status.  It’s the only vehicle to launch
humans beyond low earth orbit.
Longer than a football field!
Hell of a ride for those 24 guys.  
Closeup of a tire from the Lunar
Rover, aka “Moon Buggy”. 
LBJ was always a space program enthusiast.  Once
he was president, Kennedy put Vice President Johnson
in personal charge of the space program.  By
 the end of his term, the financial constraints of the
 Vietnam war and the Great Society forced him to
 find a means to wind down space exploration expenditures.