I went out to the Kennedy Space Center to see what was new on the Space Coast. A building is being constructed to house the retired Space Shuttle Atlantis. The structure is perhaps half built but when finished it should look awesome. The plaque on one of the historic rockets said that the rocket was “Thor-able“. The Thor-Able was an American expendable launch system and sounding rocket used for a series of re-entry vehicle tests and satellite launches between 1958 and 1960. The rocket garden was of course blazing hot. Luckily one of the support buildings had large plate glass windows that looked out onto the rockets. A flat circular fountain squirted water up periodically to cool any younger more playful space explorers.
The space program had a journalistic art program that was founded by James E. Webb around 1958. “The NASA Art Program uses the medium of fine art to document America’s
space program for ‘the expansion of human knowledge of phenomena in the
atmosphere and space…for the benefit of all mankind.” Artists from around the world helped document the race to space. Art work was on display in glass cases. But only a fraction of the artwork was on display. There was artwork upstairs but the staircase was blocked for some unknown reason. A huge wasp buzzed against the window panes in the NASA building I was sketching from. It seemed desperate to get back out to the hot humid air.
