People apparently are rushing to witness the launch of NASA's first Artemis mission with ticket sales to get a first-hand view of the event at the Kennedy Space Center were so scorching that the website of the Kennedy Center's visitor complex briefly crashed after the tickets first went on sale on Tuesday, August 2.
Tickets Sold Out 2.5 Hours After Sales Began on August 2
A "quick fix" to the problem, however, allowed the visitor complex to sell out two of three viewing package deals two hours and 30 minutes after sales began, Florida Today reported.
Space mission launches typically draw huge crowds, not excluding this historic mission that eventually would take humans back to the Moon.
100,000 People Expected to Have Up-Close View of Artemis Launch
More than 100,000 people looking for an up-close view of the first launch of the 322-foot Space Launch System rocket, slated to fly between Aug. 29 and Sept. 5 are expected to troop to the Space Coast of Florida on the August 29 launch date, including the Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, both of which are an hour east of Orlando.
Beachside hotels have also been sold out for the Artemis launch attempts, but some rooms remain available on mainland hotels, Florida's Space Coast Office of Tourism executive director Peter Cranis told Space.com.
Read Also: 10 Things To Know About the Artemis Program and the Next Moon Landing
Accommodations Widely Available for First-Hand Artemis Launch Watchers
Cranis further said that the recent SpaceX Crew Dragon launches have attracted 250,000 people to witness them, and, he said, hotel accommodations are widely available in the region. Tourists can book around 10,000 hotel rooms and 4,500 vacation rentals , and other launch watchers can drive in from nearby counties without the need for overnight accommodations.
This comes as the Artemis 1 moon mission is se to return to the launch pad, one last time, before the launch.
The Artemis 1 stack will take a roughly four-mile (6.4 kilometers) sojourn from the Kennedy Space Center's Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Complex 39B on Aug. 18, NASA revealed. The rollout will put Artemis 1 on track for its August 29 launch on a weeks-long uncrewed mission around the moon.
Artemis 1 will have the Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket and Orion spacecraft kept in top form to guarantee the mission's reliability before astronauts take a similar journey in the next years, eventually having them land on the lunar surface, if NASA's ambitious plan is fulfilled.
The coming launch follows strict system certifications and over a decade of planning.
Artemis Team 'Extremely Excited' with Upcoming 'Very Special' Artemis Mission
Artemis teams have been working extremely hard for a very, very long time to reach launch date, the lead Artemis 1 flight director at NASA's Johnson Space Center (JSC), Rick LaBrode, said in a briefing attended by Space.com. The mission, he further said, "is very special. We're extremely excited."
