The Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB, is one of the most recognizable buildings on the planet, but did you know it's also freaky?
Freaky Florida host Rusty Kath got an exclusive tour of the VAB at Kennedy Space Center. It is the largest one-story building in the world and is the place where rockets and shuttles are assembled and prepped for space flight.
The VAB was built for the assembly of Apollo/Saturn vehicles, but it was later adapted to support the shuttle program. The building is being modified again for the Orion spacecraft missions. Orion will carry a crew to space with the eventual goal of landing on Mars.
A view from the top of NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building.
But there's another side to the VAB. Here are just a few of the freaky parts of the VAB:
- Monstrous — The VAB's height is about 525 feet, 10 inches. The space is divided into two bays, and the building encloses 129,428,000 cubic feet of space.
- Zombie room — This is where crews used to fill the external tanks on the shuttles. The foam stained the refrigerator, so it looks like something from a horror film.
- Shuffleboard courts — In the Apollo days, crews spent so much time in the VAB that shuffleboard courts were painted inside the building so they could have some downtime.
- Rain inside? — Due to the size of the building, condensation builds up so much that it looks like there are clouds inside the building. When the condensation hits water, it appears to be raining
You can see all these strange places and more by watching the latest episode of Freaky Florida on Bright House Networks Local On Demand channel 999.