This is me and a girl named Stephanie that works for USA. We are in front of Discovery's astronaut crew hatch door.  

The external tank and solid rocket boosters face the beach. The shuttle is mounted and top and the top of the shuttle faces KSC. In this picture you can see the MLP (Mobile Launch Platform) and the rock path the shuttle takes to get to the launch pad.  

This is the view of the coast line. Its a beautiful view from up here. 

This picture was taken from the level of the crew hatch. In the event of an emergency before launch, if the astronauts would be inside the shuttle, they would have to evacuate by rapidly getting out of the shuttle and holding on tight to a handle bar that travels down these cables.  

This is the crew hatch door the astronauts will enter prior to launch.  

This should give you a good idea about how big the external tank and SRBs are. Here, I was standing on the MLP (Mobile Launch Platform) 

This is the Space Shuttle Discovery at the launch pad. This picture was taken on 6/17/05. It was my first time at the launch pad since I have been working at KSC.  

This is a picture of the space shuttle Discovery. I took this picture yesterday morning. They are currently doing minor tile repairs and the yellow crane will be lifting the shuttle up to replace the external tank. The nose and leading edge tiles are made of reinforced carbon carbon. These are the areas that experience the highest temperatures.