'Sight to Behold': Tourists Flock to Florida for Moon Rocket Launch

This combination of photos shows the Saturn V rocket with Apollo 12's spacecraft aboard on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in 1969, left. At right is NASA's new moon rocket for the Artemis program with the Orion spacecraft on top at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on March 18, 2022. (AP Photo)
This combination of photos shows the Saturn V rocket with Apollo 12's spacecraft aboard on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in 1969, left. At right is NASA's new moon rocket for the Artemis program with the Orion spacecraft on top at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on March 18, 2022. (AP Photo)
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'Sight to Behold': Tourists Flock to Florida for Moon Rocket Launch

This combination of photos shows the Saturn V rocket with Apollo 12's spacecraft aboard on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in 1969, left. At right is NASA's new moon rocket for the Artemis program with the Orion spacecraft on top at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on March 18, 2022. (AP Photo)
This combination of photos shows the Saturn V rocket with Apollo 12's spacecraft aboard on the launch pad at the Kennedy Space Center in 1969, left. At right is NASA's new moon rocket for the Artemis program with the Orion spacecraft on top at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., on March 18, 2022. (AP Photo)

Seeing a rocket blast off to the Moon is "a once-in-a-lifetime thing to experience," says Joanne Bostandji.

The 45-year-old has traveled all the way from northern England to Florida with her husband and two children for a space-themed vacation, and they're prepared to make sure they don't miss a second of the action as NASA's newest and most powerful rocket is scheduled to launch for the first time Monday, AFP said.

"The plan is to drive very early in the morning and get a spot" on Cocoa Beach, she said, not far from the Kennedy Space Center.

"I know it's going be from a far distance, but I still think it's going be a sight to behold," Bostandji told AFP as the family waited to enter a park dedicated to space exploration.

Between 100,000 and 200,000 visitors are expected to attend the launch of the mission, called Artemis 1, which will propel an empty capsule to the Moon as part of a test for future crewed flights.

The "historic nature" of Monday's flight, the first of several as the United States returns to the Moon, "certainly has increased public interest," Meagan Happel of Florida's Space Coast Office of Tourism told AFP.

Traffic jams are expected to start by 4 am, with the launch scheduled at 8:33 am (1233 GMT).

And even more people might show up if the launch faces a weather delay, as the make-up date falls on a weekend.

- Space cruise -
Sabrina Morley was able to find an apartment to rent not far from the beach, and plans to bring her two children and a few dozen other people on a boat chartered for the occasion by a company called Star Fleet Tours.

For $95 a ticket, "we'll go out into the ocean as close as they can get to the launch and we'll watch the launch from the boat," she said

"I've never been this close to a launch before," said the 43-year-old, who grew up in Orlando, less than an hour away.

As a child, she could see space shuttles taking off from her backyard, like "an orange ball of smoke" rising into the sky.

"We would hear the sonic booms," she remembered.

Morley likes that NASA's Artemis program aims to land a woman on the Moon for the first time, with a crew to head up in 2025 at the earliest.

"Representation matters," she said, glancing at her two-year-old daughter, who is already wearing an imitation astronaut helmet on her head.

- Good for business -
The return of prestigious space launches is an economic boon for the region. A family of three will spend an average of $1,300 over four or five days, according to the tourism office.

On the main road to Merritt Island, the peninsula where the Kennedy Space Center is located, Brenda Mulberry's space memorabilia shop is packed with tourists.

As soon as they enter, visitors are greeted with Artemis T-shirts for sale, printed in-house -- there were 1,000 copies made Saturday alone.

The last few days has seen an influx of customers, Mulberry, who founded "Space Shirts" in 1984, told AFP.

"They're just excited I think to see a NASA launch because the private space business is not so motivating to the people," she said.

This rocket, called the SLS -- a large model of which is displayed in front of her shop -- "belongs to the people," Mulberry said.

"It's their rocket. It's not SpaceX rocket," she added.

There is an air of nostalgia for the Apollo rocket program -- it's been 50 years since the last time a crewed mission went to the Moon, in 1972.

"My family, they had to go to the neighbor's house to watch (the Apollo missions) because they didn't have a television," Bostandji, who was not yet born, said.

"Now we're going to see it hopefully for real."



Tourist Coins Pose Giant Problem at N. Ireland's Famous Causeway Site

Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)
Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)
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Tourist Coins Pose Giant Problem at N. Ireland's Famous Causeway Site

Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)
Tourists are pictured at the Giant's Causeway, a Unesco World Heritage Site, near Bushmills in Northern Ireland, on July 8, 2025. (Photo by PAUL FAITH / AFP)

Northern Ireland's Giant Causeway draws close to one million visitors a year but their habit of wedging tiny coins in cracks between the rocks -- to bring love or luck -- is damaging the world-famous wonder.

Now authorities are urging tourists to keep their coins in their pockets to preserve the spectacular landscape.

Some 40,000 columns mark the causeway, Northern Ireland's first UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Geologists say the natural phenomenon was created by an outpouring of basalt lava 60 million years ago.

Legend has it that the causeway was formed by Irish giant Finn McCool.

In recent decades, visitors have pushed thousands of coins into fissures in the rocks.

The gesture is "a token of love or luck", according to Cliff Henry, the causeway's nature engagement officer.

But the coins rapidly corrode and expand, causing the basalt to flake and leaving "unsightly" rust-colored streaks, Henry told AFP.

He pointed to streaks on a rock and gingerly prized out a US cent with a set of keys.

"We get a lot of euros and dollar cents. But coins from literally all over the world -- any currency you can think of, pretty much -- we have had it here," he said.

A report by the British Geological Survey in 2021 revealed that the coins were "doing some serious damage" and something had to be done about it, he noted.

Signs are now in place around the site appealing to tourists to "leave no trace".
"Once some visitors see other people have done it, they feel that they need to add to it," causeway tour guide Joan Kennedy told AFP.

She and her colleagues now gently but firmly tell tourists to desist.

At the exit from the causeway, a US couple said they were "distressed" to hear of the damage the metal caused.

"Our guide mentioned as we came up that people had been putting coins into the stones. It's really terrible to hear that," said Robert Lewis, a 75-year-old from Florida.

"It's kind of like damaging any kind of nature when you are doing something like that, putting something foreign into nature. It's not good," said his wife, Geri, 70.

As part of a £30,000 ($40,000) conservation project, stone masons recently removed as many coins as they could -- without causing further damage -- from 10 test sites around the causeway.

Henry said the trial was successful and is to be expanded across the causeway.

"If we can get all those coins removed to start with that will help the situation and hopefully no more coins will be put in," he said.

"If visitors see fewer coins in the stones and hear appeals to stop the damaging practice, the problem can maybe be solved.

"We know that visitors love and cherish the Giant's Causeway, and many form deep personal connections to it, so we want this natural wonder to remain special for future generations."