Kennedy Space Center Offering Tours of Previously Restricted Areas for First Time Ever

Good news for space enthusiasts! Florida's Kennedy Space Center is expanding their offerings with two new tours that offer visitors the chance to get a behind-the-scenes look at our country's early space program. Tour attendees are given never-before-granted access to areas of the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station previously closed to the public. For any budding astronauts in your life, a trip to the center may be the ultimate spring break destination!

The Cape Canaveral Early Space tour takes visitors to the historic site where America's space program was born on the coast of Florida in 1950. Before NASA built Kennedy Space Center, rockets were launched into Earth's orbit from pads at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The historic military site, now known as Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, includes the launch complexes for both the Mercury and Gemini missions, as well as a memorial site for the Apollo 1 crew. The 2.5-hour tour gives plenty of time to explore all three locations, as well as the Air Force Space & Missile Museum. The tour costs $25 for adults and $19 for children.

The second tour, the Cape Canaveral Rise to Space tour, gives a more expansive space history education with a docent-led tour of restricted and historic areas of the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The $75, 4.5-hour tour begins in the Sands Space History Center, then continues to the Pad 26 Blockhouse and historic Hangar C, the first permanent and oldest surviving structure at the complex. Tour attendees will have the chance to see America's first intercontinental ballistic missile, as well as the historic launch sites for Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo 1 offered in the Early Space tour. The tour also offers the opportunity to see the historic Cape Canaveral Lighthouse.

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To attend the special behind-the-scenes tours, guests must pre-register and provide a passport or government-issued ID. Tours leave by bus from the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Admission to the Kennedy Space Center is not included with the purchase of a tour ticket but it is required.

Do you have a space lover in your life who would love these new tours?