The Entry Experience at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex is a major accomplishment in themed entertainment. The 98-foot x 30-foot ground-level LED spectacular underscores the significance of the Kennedy Space Center as a hub of innovation and space history. For Delaware North, the management firm for the Kennedy Space Center, the Entry Experience is a powerful digital platform used to tell NASA’s story in a dramatic, memorable way. For the engineers and SNAPros™ that helped design and build the LED spectacular, the award-winning Entry Experience is a testament to the value of expertise, which gained them well-deserved peer recognition. And for the rest of SNA Displays and our space-nerd staff who has always dreamed of doing space-nerd things, the digital centerpiece is just, well, cool.
To get a glimpse of how the immersive LED experience goes to infinity to beyond, we sat down with Therrin Protze, COO at Kennedy Space Center / Delaware North, along with SNA Displays’ Executive Vice President Jason Helton and Senior Project Manager Mikell Senger. The resulting interviews provide insight into the massive project, including key features of the theme park centerpiece.
✔️ One of the largest ground-level LED screens in the world
✔️ Smooth curve with tight 5-foot radius, optimally designed for 3D/anamorphic content
✔️ Astronauts, rockets, and spaceships that appear to pop out of the screen
✔️ Educational, entertainment, and thematic centerpiece
✔️ Award-winning engineering to withstand hurricane-force winds
Transcript
Therrin Protze, COO, Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex
Hello, my name is Therrin Protze and I’m the chief operating officer here at Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, operated by Delaware North since 1995…pretty much responsible to telling the NASA story, and working with the space companies to make sure that the guests who come out here to visit truly get inspired by space and create a memorable experience.
At the visitor complex, we are constantly updating and looking for new ways to tell the story. And we had a fountain that was amazing and beautiful, but it was also a lot of maintenance, a lot of energy to take care of. And one thing we really value here is obviously sustainability, because “off the earth, for the Earth” is one of NASA’s stories. So, creating something that doesn’t take as much power but can tell something in a more dramatic fashion was really a goal, to take the fountain and then turn it into something that is more dynamic, immersive, and interactive. And I think we hit the nail on the head with all contractors working with the same vision.
Jason Helton, Executive VP, SNA Displays
My name is Jason Helton, I’m the Executive Vice President with SNA Displays, in front of Kennedy Space Center and our newest installation. When looking at the overall location, and the fact that this display is right on the ground, we really wanted to go with a tight pixel pitch, so we determined to go with the 6 mm, which really has the overall nit level output that we want, especially in the Space Coast, with the sun shining on it every day. And this particular display has over 6 million pixels and it’s about 3,000 square feet. So again, very large display right at ground level. This one’s pretty out of this world.
Mikell Senger, Senior Project Manager, SNA Displays
My name is Mikell Senger, Senior Project Manager at SNA Displays. I was the project manager in charge of the Kennedy Space Center Entry Experience display. As project manager for Kennedy Space Center Entry Experience, I oversaw the timeline, budget, construction, design, manufacturing, and installation.
So during the design portion of the project, our engineers worked together to make sure that this display could withstand 150 mile per hour winds, which is common during hurricane season. Also to consider, were things like drainage. We had to dig this foundation, make sure that there weren’t any pools of water that were left standing there. And then also there’s lightning protection features on this display. If you look at the top of it, there’s some lightning terminals that will absorb the lightning and transfer to the ground safely and not harm the display.
The screen should serve as a beautiful example of what LED technology can do nowadays. You can show really cool 3D anamorphic content, so here, rockets shooting out of the screen, planets orbiting and coming into view and going away, astronauts popping out. A lot of theme parks and other facilities can really see the benefit of having such cool content. And I’m really hoping that this serves as a standard going forward for LED displays.
Therrin
Obviously, going to SNA was our first choice, and we wanted to really make sure we hit the mark, and SNA was great to work with with that regard…making sure we got the right nits, and the right size, and to make a compelling content even more beautiful than we ever imagined.
Enjoy more videos, images, and details at SNA Displays Builds Entry Experience for Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex and our Kennedy Entry Experience portfolio page.