Space Center to Offer Tourists Launch Experience, Exploration

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex has begun a 10-year, $160 million expansion that will include new space flight simulators.

The “shuttle launch experience” set to open in early 2007 will allow visitors to see and feel what it’s like to be fired into orbit.

“It will replicate the sights, sounds, G-forces and the rattle and roll of liftoff,” said Andrea Farmer, public relations manager for the complex.

The next project will focus on NASA’s interplanetary exploration and will feature film footage from real space missions. Guests will feel like they are trailing alongside NASA probes as they land on planets and asteroids.

“If the probe is going by the sun, you’ll feel the heat of the sun,” Farmer said. “If it’s trailing a comet, you’ll feel the cold sprinkle of ice.”

Also in the works is a 3-D movie that will take visitors aboard the International Space Station. Viewers will be able to envision themselves in the cramped quarters of the station and have a front row seat as astronauts conduct experiments.