The Rocket Park
One of the attractions of the US Space and Rocket Center is the collection of rockets and other items in their Rocket Park.
They have the only full Shuttle stack of Orbiter, External Tank and Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) on display in the world.
For all you technical types, here's a close up of one of the Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSMEs).
As much of the work of Wernher von Braun and his fellow "Paperclip" rocket scientists was done in Huntsville at the Redstone Arsenal, the Rocket Park has a good collection of their early work such as the Redstone, Jupiter, Juno
and a Saturn 1 on display.
The pride of the park however is the awesome Saturn V. The park has one of the remaining three production versions (others are at Kennedy Space Center and the Johnson Space Center). This one was used at the Saturn facilities in Huntsville for dynamic testing. This Saturn V is so important it is a National Heritage Monument. Check out details of the restoration plans for this Saturn V at the project's home page.
To complement the real Saturn V, they also have a full size replica which at over 360 feet high towers over everything in the park, and can be seen for miles around.
In one corner you'll also find a full size Skylab which used to be the centerpiece in the Museum
One of the "strange but true" items on display is an early prototype of a lunar roving vehicle. Nothing like what they ended up taking on Apollo 15, 16 and 17!
