Gigantic Crowds Expected for Inaugural Launch of NASA’s Mega Rocket - Gizmodo

The 322-foot-tall Space Launch System is the most powerful rocket that NASA has ever built, launching with 15% more power than the Apollo-era Saturn V rocket and nearly 12% more power than the system that delivered the Space Shuttle to orbit.

A local tourism official told Florida Today that more than 100,000 visitors are expected to attend the launch, in which SLS will ascend from Launch Pad 39B at Kennedy Space Center and attempt to send an uncrewed Orion capsule on a 42-day journey around the Moon and back.

During the Shuttle era, it wasn’t uncommon for half a million people to attend a launch, and as Peter Cranis, executive director of the Space Coast Office of Tourism, told Florida Today, launches of SpaceX Crew Dragons are drawing as many as 250,000 visitors.

The current year alone has already seen 32 launches from Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral, in a pace that hasn’t been seen since the 1960s.

The Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex presents another attraction, including the newly opened Gateway: The Deep Space Launch Complex, which features a scale model of SLS, replica spacesuits, and a SpaceX Falcon Heavy booster