Click to play videoFlorida: If your dreams of becoming an astronaut did not pan out, you can now experience the thrill of Space flight without being a billionaire.
The astronauts, led by Bob Crippen and John Young who flew the first shuttle 26 years ago, took a ride on a first of its kind new attraction.
The Shuttle Launch Experience, a $60 million ride is debuting this weekend at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex.
It was designed and built not as a thrill ride but to mimic a real shuttle liftoff.
Veteran shuttle commander Rick Searfoss spent years working to get it just right.
"I was their test pilot. I would hop aboard their mockup and they would tweak and change and adjust the vibrations and the shaking and the sounds and so forth. We did that hundreds of times," said Searfoss.
And his peers all smiles when it was over. "Can't wait to get my grandkids in there," said one.
The attraction is meant to be more than simply a ride. It’s a physical legacy of the shuttle program.
"If we come out of this and we don't have a handful of kids every week that change their minds and start raising their hands when somebody says, how many of you want to be astronauts, then we have failed miserably," said Former Shuttle Commander Charlie Bolden.
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