On Saturday the boys toured the launch sites at the Air Force base south of Kennedy that in some cases predate the space center. Above is the launch site used for two flights, Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom (plus prior unmanned tests). After those launches, recognizing that history had been made, the site was left untouched and is now a museum. The building on the left is called a block house. With two foot thick walls, a five foot thick roof, one foot thick glass windows and two sets of steel blast doors, the blockhouse would more accurately be called a bunker. Underground wires connect the block house to the rocket 300' away. The blockhouse is quite small, yet held 117 people on the day of the launch. The computer is a Burroughs and came complete with pull-out ashtrays at every work station. The RAM chips are about the size of a modern rack server. The whole double-rack of RAM added up to 1024 bits, not bytes, not kilobytes.Craig admitted to being a bit sad as they left Florida to return home. Today they are headed to Houston and will spend a day or two touring the NASA facilities there. About a third of the return trip will be spent in California, touring even more NASA facilities and a couple of colleges.
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