FULL THROTTLE IN FLORIDA
NASA, Space Coast towns get ready to celebrate 50th anniversary of Apollo 11 launch, moon landing
The world had never seen anything like it. Nor had Florida.
A million people descended on the Space Coast in Central Florida to witness history — the second manned moon shot from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, the first launch where the audacious plan was to land a man on the lunar surface.
Many staked out positions on bridges and piers the night before. They filled every hotel room for dozens of miles around. (Walt Disney World was still under construction nearly 100 kilometres away and the number of rooms in the area was limited.) Thousands camped on the beach. Restrooms and other amenities were in short supply, but the crowd was good-humoured, remarkable in the summer heat. Four hundred million around the world would watch on live TV.
At 9:32 a.m. on July 16, 1969, Apollo 11 lifted off, then accelerating to warp speed until, a speck in the sky, trailing orange flames and a smoky contrail, it disappeared. The spacecraft, astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins tightly strapped in, had, like others before, “slipped the surly bonds of earth,” but this time, there was a difference: there’d be a stop en route — on the moon.
NASA and the towns along Florida’s Space Coast are planning major celebrations of this year’s 50th anniversary of that flight.
Today, the Space Coast is getting a boost from the new, partly privatized space program that’s operating from the Kennedy Space Center. The towns had been devastated by the end of the shuttle program in 2011. With much of the launch program now in the hands of billionaires such as SpaceX founder Elon Musk, scientists and tech types are pouring back into the area, as are tourists.
My wife and I have watched SpaceX liftoffs from two different vantage points — the beaches at Lori Wilson Park and Alan Shepard Park (named for the first U.S. astronaut in space) in Cocoa Beach. They offer not just stretches of sand and seagrass-covered dunes, but restrooms and flat-rate parking, amenities that can come in handy since there’s always a launch “window” and you might be there a while.
Each time we’ve watched, the crowd cheered the sight of the racing fireball and cheered again for the deafening sonic boom that followed. Even more awe-inspiring has been the return of the giant booster rockets, which descend about 10 minutes after liftoff for pinpoint vertical landings for reuse on another flight.
Both parks are more than 20 km from the space centre, as is Space View Park in Titusville, another prime viewing area 47 km north of Cocoa Beach. The only way to get closer is to pay for stadium seating at the space centre. Even then, you’ll be eight km from the launch pad at best, depending on which is being used. Tickets are expected to be in high demand when SpaceX, as soon as July, launches a NASA crew aboard the Falcon Heavy, the world’s largest and most powerful rocket, to rendezvous with the International Space Station, the first time since the end of the shuttle program that an American rocket has carried American astronauts into space.
Cocoa Beach and Cocoa, the towns most closely associated with the space centre, are sprucing up. In Cocoa Beach, popular with families and surfers, 1960s motels and apartments line the main road through the somewhat ragtag outskirts, alternating with fast-food restaurants and the occasional surf shop or boutique. But the bars and restaurants along the beach do a brisk business, especially on launch days.
Captain J’s, a casual restaurant with a second-story deck beside Alan Shephard Park was empty when we arrived for a recent launch. So was the Sandbar Sports Grill nearby; it offers a patio facing the beach.
An hour closer to launch time, both were crowded, many of the patrons toting cameras with huge telephoto lenses.
Nearby, the Ron Jon Surf Shop, the chain’s flagship store, rules the roost. With 52,000 square feet on a two-acre site, the colossally gaudy emporium, open 24/7/365, sells everything from surfboards to skateboards, snorkelling equipment, GoPros and a mind-boggling array of colourful beachwear (expensive) and tchotchkes (cheaper but not inexpensive). It also sells customized Chrysler PT Cruisers, which are tricked out like vintage “Woody Wagons.” You can’t miss the store: It’s painted bright yellow and surrounded by tacky sculptures with water sport motifs.
While much of Cocoa Beach’s economic activity is on its outskirts, its downtown is showing new promise with restaurants, bars, several art galleries and intriguing boutiques in a compact area with a pleasant vibe.
Check out the whimsical gifts and baubles at Secrets of Cocoa Beach or the works by local artists at the Studios of Cocoa Beach. Among the surf shops in town, two call the neighbourhood home: Neilson Surf Shop Surf Schooland School of Surf.
When we visited post-launch on one recent evening, a well-dressed crowd was enjoying drinks on the patio at Heidi’s Jazz Club while waiting for the show.
Others were basking in the warm glow of a spectacular sunset at tables outside Juice ’n’ Java Café, a coffee house with a good selection of coffees, smoothies and energy drinks and a light menu that includes some gorgeous salads. There’s often live music after 5 p.m.
Down the street, Flavour Kitchen and Wine Bar was crowded. And Fat Kahuna’s, steps from the beach, was turning prospective diners away; its inventive menu includes such specialties as Kona coffee-encrusted Norwegian salmon.
Earlier, before the launch, we had explored pristine Historic Cocoa Village in otherwise mundane Cocoa, several kilometres inland across the Banana and Indian rivers.
The district, Cocoa’s original downtown, was a tropical charmer, chic shops and eateries lining shady brick sidewalks with benches.
At The Bath Cottage: Home of Bamboo we were greeted by Angela James, a sales clerk who migrated from Cleveland decades ago and, like many Florida residents, never looked back.
She explained how the naturally thermodynamic bamboo bed sheets on display keep one cool when it’s hot and warm when it’s cold (not usually a problem in Florida).
Heading out on my own to take some pictures, I peeked in Green Circle Art at the nicely preserved old Masons’ building; it shows the work of 60 local artists and artisans.
My wife, meanwhile, checked out the Magic Dove Magic Shop and delightful Annie’s Toy Chest, which occupied a white clapboard house that looked like it could have been plucked from Nantucket.
The restaurants all looked inviting.
Several couples were sipping wine beneath giant red umbrellas outside Ossorio Bakery & Café, known not just for its delicious pastries and breads, but for roasting its own coffee beans and making its own ice cream from scratch. It also serves sandwiches and pizza.
A block down the street, in a delightful courtyard lined with nifty shops, Café Margaux has been serving classic European cuisine since 1989. Its spring menu includes marinated elk and roast duck a l’orange. Villa Palma at the Village serves excellent Italian cuisine. Slightly out of character in the quaint neighbourhood, Blind Lion Jazz offers live music and a full bar.
In the centre of the village, the stately 95-year-old Aladdin Theater, once a vaudeville house, is now owned by the city, which renamed it the Historic Cocoa Village Playhouse. It presents local and touring productions for 50,000 paying ticket-holders a year.
The 1960s TV comedy I Dream of Jeannie, starred Larry Hagman as an astronaut who lived in Cocoa Beach and the accidental master of a beautiful genie, who granted not one, but all his wishes — isn’t forgotten.
Perhaps another genie has granted the Space Coast its most fervent wish — a new manned space program.