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That's not surprising. They want something guaranteed to be good. It's unrealistic for them to be able to know if every form of ID from any country in the world is legitimate. I'm sure they do at least a cursory check before allowing anyone in.

In theory, your passport is good. It should have been checked when you entered the US.

If you are a foreign national in the US, you're suppose to keep your passport with you at all times. Some states require anyone 18 and over to carry at least a state issued ID with them at all times. I carry 3 state/federal photo IDs, because they all serve a different purpose.

This is the ID requirement from their site.

ID Requirements
Please arrive at the designated boarding area at least 15 minutes before departure time. A U.S. government-issued Driver's License or U.S. State ID card is required for guests age 18 and over. International adult and child guests must present a valid passport to participate.

https://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/tours/ksc-up-close-then-and-now-tour.aspx

Well, he could just register to buy a ticket on the 30th like the rest of us. Failing that there's always congressmen you can hit up or hit on. ;)

They are going to free museums.

What? The Udvar-Hazy is free (though parking is $10 or $15 per car), but the Intrepid museum and the Kennedy Space Center Museum are both definitely not free, and are both, in fact, private organizations. Kennedy is here: http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/buy-tickets-admission-hours.aspx Intrepid's site seems not to be responding. I don't know anything about the LA location. But having taken the family to Intrepid, Kennedy, Udvar-Hazy, and Air Force museum; I can assure you that 'free' had nothing to do with the site selection. In fact, as the museums must now pay NASA $28m (except for the Smithsonian), I'd say that the free museums were at a disadvantage.

Some of the early astronauts haven't done too well in later life. They were big heroes briefly, and then has-beens for decades.

Being an astronaut today must really suck. There are about 100 "active astronauts", most of whom will never get into space again. There has to be a layoff coming. Meanwhile, they get assigned to "lunch with an astronaut" duty.

You can buy tickets to see the launch from the NASA causeway, which is the closest publicly-accessible viewing site. See http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/space-shuttle-launch-viewing-tickets.aspx. For the previous couple of launches, these sold out in minutes. http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/view/view_shuttle.html lists some off-site viewing locations.
Personally, I think it's totally worth it.

It's like being an ex-fighter pilot. If you've worked in aerospace, you've probably met plenty of former fighter pilots. They're a fun crowd, and they do OK after giving up the cockpit.

Being an astronaut hasn't been glamorous for a long time. Those guys spend far more time doing "Lunch with an Astronaut" than they do flying.

Exploratorium in San Francisco
Balboa Park in San Diego
Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago
Kennedy Space Center in Florida

Next time you figure out how to put something the size of an apartment building on display *without* being infested by bugs, squirrels, and pollution you let me know, mm'kay?

Being an astronaut is an incredibly hard job and I salute the brave men and women who risk their lives (and sanity) in the name of science.

As a job, being an astronaut today is not that great. The guys who go up on the ISS are being worked really hard for their whole tour, because it's now so hard to get people up there. The workload has increased substantially since the number of flights declined. There's a good chance the tour of duty in space may be longer than expected, due to problems on the ground. (The Soviet-era cosmonauts had it even worse; one guy was up on Mir for 438 days, being unfortunate enough to be up during the collapse of the Soviet Union.)

But that's not the worst part. NASA has too many people for the flight slots, so many of the "astronauts" will never fly. Right now, there are 100 flight-eligible astronauts, most of whom are doing mid-level management jobs. (NASA's phrase is "will serve in technical assignments until assigned to a space flight.") Or worse, filling the daily "lunch with an astronaut" slot. NASA is no longer training new astronauts.

Being an astronaut doesn't make you famous any more. Here's the list of active astronauts. How many have you heard of?

Pretty much anywhere on the east coast within 100 miles, especially for a night launch. I happened to be in Daytona for spring break one year when they had a night launch with, IIRC, a new moon, and it was spectacular even from 60 miles away. The whole beach was pretty well lit up for about half a minute or so. I'm not sure if the next launch is planned for day or night (probably day since night launches are fairly infrequent), but I'm sure it wouldn't be a bad view from Daytona even during the day.

But if you want to get closer, there's plenty of hotels right across the bay: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=l&hl=en&q=hotels&nea r=kennedy+space+center&ie=UTF8&z=11&ll=28.583316,- 80.709686&spn=0.304493,0.468292&om=1

Directions to the KSC are here: http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/KSC/directions.a sp

And if you want to get really close, you can buy tickets here.

For all non-UK Slashdotters, this forum will bring you up to speed on what has been happening in the last week. - http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/forumdisplay.p hp?f=139

I usually hate reality TV shows, but this one has me hooked, maybe because we have done the fantasic ATX http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/visitKSC/atx.asp so some of the training looked familiar and it brought back some happy memories.

BTW, they are either the stupidest people ever.. or brilliant actors.

Jonathan

Oscar The Grouch Does California, Nevada & Arizona - http://www.mccormackj.fsnet.co.uk/oscarthegrouch

I was hired to work at Kennedy Space Center just before Discovery went up. Since then, we've put up 3 spacecraft and I haven't seen a damn one of them. I didn't have security clearance for the shuttle and I didn't even know about the one today! Oh well, Nov 3 we try again for that GOES satellite. And March 4 for STS 121... right? guys?

The "Maximum Access" ticket is separate from the tour which takes you to the shuttle observation area. For that, you need to buy an additional ticket for the "Up Close" tour.

~Philly

I'm pretty sure the coast guard and navy keep the area around the cape free of civilians. You can *see* the launch from anywhere in Florida, but I recommend purchasing tickets to view the launch from Kennedy Space Center.

"KSC is a private sector organization in the middle of Kansas (more or less)."

Hold on, are you talking about the same KSC that I'm thinking of? That already has an actual saturn V rocket on display inside of an air-conditioned building together with the actual launch control room equipment? Note that the KSC I'm talking about is in Florida, not in Kansas, not even more or less...

"KSC is a private sector organization in the middle of Kansas (more or less)."

Hold on, are you talking about the same KSC that I'm thinking of? That already has an actual saturn V rocket on display inside of an air-conditioned building together with the actual launch control room equipment? Note that the KSC I'm talking about is in Florida, not in Kansas, not even more or less...

I just got back from a vacation in Orlando where we took a day to go over to the Kennedy Space Center. There was much more to do and see there than I expected. The best part was seeing the never-used Saturn V rocket from Apollo 18. Other cool stuff is a bus tour (extra $) that takes you up to (not in) the vehicle assembly building, and around launch pads 39a&b.
I even got a cool shirt that says 'I Need My Space'.
The trip invigorated me about space exploration.
Truely we must dream!
It is a must see if you're in Orlando. It's only a 45 minute drive.
-Steve