One of the fascinating things about Titusville is that it is home to the Windover Archaelogical Site, a pond in which 168 extremely well-preserved skeletons were discovered in 1982. The skeletons were found to be dated to the Early Archaic era, around 7,000 to 8,000 years ago. Particularly remarkable is that over half of the skulls found had brain tissue that had been preserved. There were also grapes, elderberries and prickly pear fruit found in the stomachs of some of the buried.
How could brain tissue be preserved so long?! The bodies found in Windover Pond were covered with peat which created an anaerobic environment, keeping out oxygen and thus preventing the bacterial and fungal growth that causes decomposition. The neutral PH of the pond water and peat is also believed to have helped keep the remains so well-preserved.
One skeleton was found to be of a boy around 15 years of age who had spina bifida with several corresponding deformities and disabilities, a condition with which he could not have survived on his own. This finding and analysis of a couple of other skeletons from the Windover site showed that the social order of the time was more caring than previously believed.
8,000 years later...
Titusville is also known as Space City, U.S.A., and is the closest city to Cape Canaveral and the Kennedy Space Station. The town had its peak during the three decades that the space shuttle program was active. Since the shuttle program ended in 2011, it has had some rough times with one of the nation's highest unemployment rates and a sluggish housing market.
More recently, however, there have been quite a few businesses moving into the Titusville area, taking advantage of the experienced and highly-trained labor force that used to be employed by NASA. Aerospace, aviation and engineering companies have moved in, and Titusville is starting to recover.
One of the companies that is fueling Titusville's new growth is SpaceX, a private company that "designs, manufactures, and launches advanced rockets and spacecraft."
The brainchild behind SpaceX? Absolutely brilliant and quite the overachieving over-achiever. Elon Musk is head engineer, chief designer and CEO of Space X. He was also the person who started PayPal, one of the co-founders of Tesla (the electric car with the highest range per charge), and is also very involved in solar energy technology. Apparently, Musk was also the inspiration for Tony Stark of the Iron Man movies -- super cool!
Musk is not only a rocket scientist; he is a rocket scientist with the enormous dream of making space travel affordable for regular folk by creating a reusable rocket, a feat that would make space launches significantly cheaper in cost.
He's probably going to do it. For now, SpaceX is successfully sending rockets into orbit. Tomorrow, its Falcon 9 rocket is set for take off right next to where we are anchored.
Maybe one day we will be driving electric cars in space after flying there on a SpaceX spacecraft, and paying for it all via PayPal, of course.
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| We are anchored right next to a railroad bridge. The logo on the engine of this train was the NASA logo. |
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| Our inflatable toys -- the Windglider (loaned to us from some of our favorite friends -- thanks, Cindy, Tom, Patrick and Aidan!) and our SUP. |
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| Visiting the wildlife refuge. |
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| We love it when Phoenix cooks, especially when she makes her specialty, fried noodles. |
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| Two of the Kennedy Space Center launch pads are on the far right of this picture. |
WHERE WE ARE: Anchored just north of Titusville, Mile 877. It was a relaxing day of not moving anywhere.
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