Can't Get to Kennedy Space Center? See Launchpad Up Close in Gigapan

By Nancy Atkinson - November 1, 2010 at 2:13 PM UTC | Space Exploration
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From experience, I can tell you being at one of the launchpads at Kennedy Space Center is awesome beyond words. Not many people, though, get to see a shuttle on the launchpad up close and personal, and with just a couple launches left, many are at least are hoping to get a view of the launch. But if you aren't able to travel to Florida and see a shuttle on the pad, you can take advantage of a few different websites that can take you there virtually, and probably bring you closer than you could ever get in person.

The first website is Gigapan, where NASA photographer Bill Ingalls has put together all the high resolution images he took on Sunday, Oct. 31, 2010 at Kennedy Space Center, and created one huge images that you can pan around and see everything up close.

Go to the Gigapan website

, and by moving your mouse around or by clicking on the images below the big image, you will be transported up close and personal with various locations within the image.

The Gigapan technology was originally developed for the Mars Exploration Rovers, and the panoramas created from Mars enabled a simulated experience of being on another planet. The Gigapan project aims to create a similar experience, but for exploration of Earth.

The second website is John O'Connor's NASA Tech website. I met John when I was at Kennedy Space Center earlier this year, was able to watch him take the images for the extremely high resolution virtual tours he creates. The interactive 360 degree images he creates are nothing short of stunning -- but they are also very bandwidth intensive -- so be prepared, and watch out if you don't have high speed internet or have a lot of browsers or windows open on your computer. Right now on his website you can see different views of the launchpad with Discovery sitting on top, and also go inside the space station processing facility and see Robonaut 2 before he was stowed for launch on STS-133, and much more.

Here's an image I took of John setting up his equipment when we were at Launchpad 39B in March of this year.

[caption id="attachment_77163" align="aligncenter" width="580" caption="John O'Connor from NASA Tech. "]

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Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com