Jump to content
Join the Alien Search, login or register FREE on Aliens and Space Forum
Members Can Post Anonymously On This Site

A Floridian Sunset

NASA

By NASA
in NASA

 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Publishers
NASA Mentor

NASA

Posted
  • Publishers
Posted
Slightly left of center, the Sun sets behind some vegetation. The sky is a dusty pale blue with a few clouds in it. Trees and plants arc around a body of water, and the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) stands at the right edge of the image. The VAB is a very tall, white and gray linear building with a United States flag and NASA meatball logo painted on the front.
NASA/Ben Smegelsky

A NASA photographer captured the sunset on Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024, near the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The iconic building, completed in 1966 and currently used for assembly of NASA’s Space Launch System rocket for Artemis missions, is still the only building in which rockets were assembled that carried humans to the surface of another world.

The VAB stands 525 feet tall and contains 130 million cubic feet of interior space. It sports a large American flag – a 209-foot-tall, 110-foot-wide stars and stripes painted on the exterior of its south side. Each star measures six feet across, and the blue field is the size of a basketball court. The flag originally was painted onto the VAB in 1976 for the Bicentennial Exposition on Space and Technology. A 12,300-square-foot NASA logo also adorns the south side of the facility.

The VAB has received a number of distinctions. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places on Jan. 21, 2000. In January 2020, the American Society of Civil Engineers designated the VAB as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. The Florida Association of The American Institute of Architects honored the facility and its adjacent Launch Control Center with a “Test of Time” design award, recognizing the contributions of the architects and engineers of these unique buildings.

Learn more about this distinctive building.

Image Credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky

View the full article

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Similar Topics

    • European Space Agency
      Telling sunset
      By European Space Agency
      Image: The penultimate sunset at Concordia research station in Antarctica marks the beginning of a very exciting time for the 12-member crew: the coming of Antarctic night and the winter-over.
      ESA sponsored medical doctor Hannes Hagson and his crew mates are finally embarking on their ‘real’ mission in Antarctica: living and work in isolation for six months in the name of spaceflight research.
      The Italian-French outpost Concordia is located 3233 m above sea level where temperatures can drop to –80°C in the complete frozen darkness outside. The sun disappears behind the horizon for four months. No supplies or people can be flown in during the winter months; and the high altitude causes the crew to experience chronic hypobaric hypoxia or lack of oxygen in the brain.
      These conditions are as close to living on another planet as humans can get on Earth.
      For this reason, Hannes is facilitating biomedical experiments on himself and his crewmates to understand how humans cope with living in extreme isolation. From sleep studies to gut health measurements to mindful practices, the crew are poked and prodded to help researchers understand and overcome the challenges extreme environments, like space, pose to present and future explorers.
      This image was taken by Hannes on 3 May. The last full sunset took place the day after but appeared only as a thin sliver in the sky.
      Follow Hannes during his winter-over on the Chronicles from Concordia blog.
      View the full article
    • HubbleSite
      Hubble Finds that Extrasolar Planet Has a Hazy Sunset
      By HubbleSite
      A team of astronomers, led by Frederic Pont from the Geneva University Observatory in Switzerland, has detected for the first time strong evidence of hazes in the atmosphere of a planet orbiting a distant star. The new Hubble Space Telescope observations were made as the extrasolar planet, dubbed HD 189733b, passed in front of its parent star in an eclipse. As the light from the star briefly passes through the exoplanet's atmosphere, the gases in the atmosphere stamp their unique spectral fingerprints on the starlight. Where the scientists had expected to see the fingerprints of sodium and potassium, there were none; implying that high-level hazes (with an altitude of nearly 2,000 miles) are responsible for blocking the light from these elements.
      View the full article

  • Check out these Videos

×
×
  • Create New...