If you are coming to stay at one of our Florida vacation homes during or after Memorial Day weekend 2007 - be sure to make time in your stay to take a trip out to the Space coast to visit Kennedy Space Center and take a ride on the new "Shuttle Launch Experience".

"GET VERTICAL!" and take a trip on the most realistic ride ever. The Shuttle Launch Experience gives you the thrill of a full space-shuttle launch simulation along with up to 25 other passengers. Guests are loaded into a passenger module and it is tilted back, giving the sensation they are sitting on their backs as the countdown winds down to launch.

The Shuttle Launch Experience cost over $60 million, and has taken over 3 years to design and build. During the testing phase, real NASA astronauts have helped to "tweak" the rides parameters, adjusting the vibrations, noise levels and the "feel" so that the average person can experience how it feels to sit on top of a real shuttle as it soars in to space.

Visitors to the Kennedy Space Center will be sure to quickly make this ride one of the favorite attractions of Central Florida. Chief Operations Officer Dan Le Blanc said "This ride is helping us to tell the NASA story better than we've ever told it before....and inspiring people to support the exploration of space".

Locate the Kennedy Space Center on Google Maps

In 2006, there were 1.4 million visitors to the Kennedy Space Center.