CLAUDIA & CARSTEN'S WORLD EXPEDITION

Hello Miami

Visit to the Everglades in airboat

The American alligator

Adult male American alligators measure 3,4 to 5 meters (11 to 16 ft) in length, and can weigh up to 450 to 600 kg (1,000 to 1,320 lb). Females are smaller, measuring around 3 meters (9,8 ft). The American alligator inhabits freshwater wetlands, such as marshes and cypress swamps from Texas to North Carolina.

More alligators

Around 300 alligators were living in this stretch of water. Florida has been suffering a severe drought, so the alligators are staying in the few canals where water is available.

Off to the Kennedy Space Center

and the Launch Complex 39A to watch the SpaceX Falcon 9 CRS-11 rocket launch, as it lifts off carrying the resupplies and science equipment for the International Space Station.

The iconic Kennedy Space Center

The Rocket Garden

NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs are represented by this garden of giants, not just as engineering feats of technology, but also as tribute to the scientists and engineers who turned dreams of spaceflight into reality.

First American to orbit Earth

On February 20, 1962, John H. Glenn, Jr., became the first American to orbit Earth. An Atlas launch vehicle propelled a Mercury spacecraft into Earth orbit and enabled Glenn to circle Earth three times. The flight lasted a total of 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 23 seconds before the Friendship 7 spacecraft splashed down in the ocean. Most major systems worked smoothly, and the flight was a great success as an engineering feat.

The right stuff

Frank Frederick Borman is best remembered as the Commander of Apollo 8, the first mission to fly around the Moon, making him, along with crew mates Jim Lovell and Bill Anders, the first of only 24 humans to do so. Before flying on Apollo, he set a fourteen-day spaceflight endurance record on Gemini 7, and also served on the NASA review board which investigated the Apollo 1 fire.

You'd like to spend 3 days in this?

Gemini 9A was a 1966 manned 3-day spaceflight in NASA's Gemini program. It was the 7th manned Gemini flight, the 13th manned American flight and the 23rd spaceflight of all time.

Before Twitter

in a time when a President showed leadership and set real measurable scientific goals, not for the good and interest of the USA alone, but for the entire world and humankind. We're going to the moon by the end of this decade!

One small step for man...

Apollo 11 blasted off on July 16, 1969 with astronauts Neil Armstrong, Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin and Michael Collins on board. Four days later, Armstrong and Aldrin landed on the moon in the Eagle Lunar Module. Collins stayed in orbit around the moon. He did experiments and took pictures. On July 20, 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first human to step on the moon. He and Aldrin walked around for three hours. They performed experiments and collected bits of moon dirt and rocks to bring back to Earth.

Saturn V

This is still today the most powerful rocket ever built and was used to support the Apollo program.

Saturn V

The Saturn V's size and payload capacity dwarfed all other previous rockets which had successfully flown at that time. With the Apollo spacecraft on top, it stood 363 feet (111 m) tall, and without fins, it was 33 feet (10 m) in diameter. Fully fueled, the Saturn V weighed 6.5 million pounds (2,950 metric tons). At liftoff, the five F-1 rocket engines produced 7.5 million pounds of thrust, equal to an estimated 160,000,000 horsepower.

The 5 Rocketdyne F-1 rocket engine

The F-1 is a gas-generator cycle rocket engine developed in the United States by Rocketdyne in the late 1950s and used in the Saturn V rocket in the 1960s and early 1970s. Five F-1 engines were used in the first stage of each Saturn V, which served as the main launch vehicle of the Apollo program. The F-1 remains the most powerful single combustion chamber liquid-propellant rocket engine ever developed.

Lunar module no. 9 (LM-9)

This is the original LM-9, which was supposed to have flown on Apollo 15 with astronauts David Scott and James Irwin. However, when NASA decided that Apollo 15 and subsequent flights would be outfitted with Lunar Roving Vehicles, LM-9 was replaced with the LM-10, a version modified to carry the Lunar Rover. Since the LM-9 was build to function only at moon gravity (1/6th of Earth's gravity), it has to be suspended while on display on Earth, as it otherwise would collapse under its own weight.

Headlines in Denmark

on the morning after Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon on July 20, 1969

Original Command Module of Apollo 14

the 8th manned mission in the Apollo program, and the 3rd to land on the Moon. It was the last of the "H missions," targeted landings with two-day stays on the Moon with two lunar EVAs, or moonwalks. Commander Alan Shepard, Command Module Pilot Stuart Roosa, & Lunar Module Pilot Edgar Mitchell launched on their 9-day mission on January 31, 1971. Shepard and Mitchell made their lunar landing on February 5 in the Fra Mauro formation, originally the target of the aborted Apollo 13 mission.

Alan Shepard’s space suit

This is the original space suit worn by Alan Shepard’s on the Apollo 14 mission. It is still covered in the moon dust. During the two lunar moonwalks of the mission, 42,8 kg (94.35 lb) of Moon rocks were collected and several scientific experiments were performed. Shepard also hit two golf balls on the lunar surface with a makeshift club he had brought with him. Shepard and Mitchell spent 33½ hours on the Moon, with almost 9½ hours of moonwalking.

Cockput replica

of the Apollo Command Module.

Cockpit replica

of the Lunar Module from the Apollo missions.

Space Shuttle Atlantis

The real one, resting here after 33 missions.

Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

On January 28, 1986, the NASA shuttle orbiter mission STS-51-L and the tenth flight of Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart 73 seconds into its flight, killing all seven crew members, which consisted of five NASA astronauts and two payload specialists. Disintegration of the vehicle began after an O-ring seal in its right solid rocket booster failed at liftoff. The O-ring was not designed to fly under unusually cold conditions as in this launch. This recovered piece is from left side body panel.

Quote from President Reagan's

address to the Nation on the day of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.

Space Shuttle Columbia disaster

On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated upon reentering Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven crew members. During the launch of STS-107, Columbia's 28th mission, a piece of foam insulation broke off from the external tank and struck the left wing of the orbiter. When Columbia re-entered the atmosphere of Earth, the damage allowed hot atmospheric gases to penetrate and destroy the internal wing structure, which caused the spacecraft to become unstable and break apart.

Model of the Hubble Space Telescope

Hubble Facts: Hubble has made more than 1,3 million observations since 1990. Astronomers using Hubble data have published more than 14,000 scientific papers, making it one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built. Hubble has peered back into the very distant past, to locations more than 13,4 billion light years from Earth. Hubble can see astronomical objects with an angular size of 0.05 arc seconds, which is like seeing a pair of fireflies in Tokyo from the state of Maryland, US.

We could have spend days here.

Maybe one day we can travel to the Moon as space tourists?

Snoopy also went to space

Unbelievable dissapointment

Due to bad weather the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 CRS-11 rocket to the International Space Station, we came to see, was cancelled 20 minutes before the scheduled launch!!! This was also supposed to be the 100th rocket launch from the historic Launch Complex 39A where the Apollo and Space Shuttle missions made their history.

Vehicle Assembly Building

is a building designed to assemble large space vehicles, such as the massive Saturn V and the Space Shuttle. The future Space Launch System will also be assembled there. The interior volume of the building is so vast that it has its own weather, including "rain clouds" forming below the ceiling on very humid days, which the moisture reduction systems are designed to minimize.

Key West

This is the Southernmost point of continental USA.

Waiting in line

This is the queue of people lining up to take a picture at the Southernmost point.

Ernest Hemingway's home in Key West

Ernest as we know him

Letter from Ernest to a friend

Ernest as he really was

Hemingway's study

where he wrote the majority of his books.

Street Art in Wynwood, Miami

before and after the Presidential election. After Trump won, the artists were told by the owner of the building to erase him and redo the painting.

The result after Trump was erased

Mosaic art in Wynwood, Miami

Take a closer look at the eyes of the skull. What you see?