When computers were for sissies

Saw this Gemini spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Centre.

Humans went into space in these things back in the sixties.

The controls look like some old penny arcade game and

there's no room to move at all. Makes you realise how primitive

early technology was and the kinds of risks Armstrong and the like

were prepared to take in the name of science.

Notes from a NASAphile

Our trip to Kennedy Space Centre in Florida was a real eye opener for me. Space travel is pretty mind boggling and so are the statistics that surround it. For instance, did you know that the shuttle silo pictured above is so big that the flag on its side is the size of a football field?

Or that this crawler used to transport the shuttle to the launch pad travels so slowly it is routinely overtaken by snails?

Or that Kennedy Space Centre has its own built-in security system (a network of alligator infested swamps)?

There is something larger than life about the whole place and once you've been there, you will never again entertain the idea that the moon landing was filmed in a studio somewhere. American space travel is the real deal.