Space View Park and Veterans Memorial Park, Titusville, Florida

 

“A launch is he world’s longest “Tailgate Party” for the world’s shortest “Game.”

John Oster

Titusville is a small town near Cape Canaveral, Florida that is full of pride in the NASA program and its astronauts. This towns residents pride shines as you walk around this lovely park in downtown Titusville designated to our heroes in the space program. Space View Park is the first of its kind that honors America’s astronauts and those who worked with them to help get them into space and keep them safe.

The park is artistically designed and very pleasing to the eye. The astronauts names are engraved on black granite with their hand prints. Their missions are listed as well as all their accomplishments. I marveled at how small some of the hand prints were or maybe I should say, I was surprised at how large my hand print was in comparison. Walking through the park and reading all the placards, you will find out so much information about NASA history, their missions, and the astronauts.

Directly across the street from this park is Veterans Memorial Park which is also a part of the Space View park and is located right on the Indian River. This is a great viewing area for watching launches since it is directly across from NASA’s Launch Complex 39 at the Kennedy Space Center. From this park, you get a great view of the entire Canaveral Spaceport and Space X Boosters.

This gorgeous waterfront park has lovely decorative paved pathways that are shaded by lovely Sand Live Oak trees. The day we were there, many people were sitting on the benches chatting it up with friends and strangers alike and enjoying their lunch. From this park, you get great views of the Indian River and the fishing boats docked there as well as a great view of the Max Brewer Bridge. It must be a great area for fishing as there were quite a few people trying their luck that day.

In this park, a memorial stands out amongst the trees called the Project Mercury Memorial. This monument is topped with an unusual memorial symbol with a large number 7 in the middle of it. The number seven stands for the amount of astronauts that were chosen for this project which started in 1958. They focused on putting the first Americans into space. Their missions were Mercury-Redstone 3, Mercury-Redstone 4, Mercury-Atlas 6, Mercury-Atlas 7, Mercury-Atlas 8, and Mercury-Atlas 9. Mercury’s final flight was in February 1963.

The Gemini Memorial which focused on missions that orbited the earth and on space walks. These missions were set up with two astronauts per space craft. The Gemini program went from 1962 to 1966. The missions included Gemini 8, Gemini 1, Gemini 2, Gemini 4, Gemini 3, Gemini 7, Gemini 6A, Gemini 5, Gemini 12, Gemini 9A, Gemini 10, Gemini 11, and Gemini 12. These missions lasted from 5 hours to fourteen days.

The Apollo Memorial was a program that was promoted by President J. F. Kennedy and focused on going to the moon. The first time, we landed on the moon was April 16, 1969. What a day that was for all of us Americans. We were all very proud that day of what we accomplished getting to the moon safely and later safely returning. Apollo missions were Apollo 4, Apollo 5, Apollo 6, Apollo 7, Apollo 8, Apollo 9, Apollo 10, Apollo 11, Apollo 12, Apollo 13, Apollo 14, Apollo 15, Apollo 16, and Apollo 17. The last Apollo flight was in 1972.

The last memorial was dedicated to the Space Shuttle. The first launch was in 1981 and was the longest mission with the last launch in 2011. This program lasted thirty years. The ships built were the Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Endeavor, and Atlantis. Each side of the memorial is etched with information on each flight and their crew. The last space shuttle flight was in 2011.

This park is open from sunrise to sunset except when there is a night launch. On those nights, it stays open later for viewing the launch. You can find this park at 10 Broad Street, Titusville. This is a must see while in Titusville.

Till next time. Bye for now.