According to a USAToday report, the Kennedy Space Center has expanded its visitor program. To allow visitors to get a more detailed understanding of the facility, NASA will give close-up views of launch pads and other areas. Most have been the sites of highly-secret operations for the past half-century.  

One tour feature is to Launch Pad 39-A, famed for the lift-off site of the six Apollo missions to the moon and other space flights. At Launch Pad 39-B, visitors will see where similar missions originated, including shuttles, Saturn and Skylab operations.

Tickets for the NASA launch pad tours are $25 for adults and $19 for children 3-11. There is also a fee of $45 for entering the Kennedy Space Center. For more information, go to kennedyspacecenter.com

Detroit has many attractions, including the Henry Ford Museum, Motown Museum, Zoo, Detroit Institute of the Arts and several upscale casino-hotels. But, with the downturn of the economy, the city has not been high on the list of vacation destinations.

Now, someone in Detroit has come up with an idea to build something that could resemble a haunted Disney amusement park. Tentatively called Z World, it would be inhabited by spooky features and creatures from currently-popular films and TV programs featuring zombies. 

The most interesting and oddest part of the proposal is that the theme park’s setting will be based on stark reality. It would be built on what is now the most blighted, rundown area of the financially- and socially-troubled city. The zombie theme will fit right in with what has become a poverty-haunted war zone. The promoters believe Z World will bring jobs, repairs, new construction, visitor money and many other benefits into an area that badly needs as much help as it can get.

For more information, go to zworlddetroit.com

According to a USAToday report, a virtual video projection called Carla .... not Glinda the Good Witch ... now greets and gives messages and information in Boston’s Logan International Airport. The three-dimensional image won’t wave a magic wand, but speaks in friendly tones in English, French and Spanish. However, although she may look like a real human of the right size and depth, she is just a recorded hologram and won’t answer questions.

There’s a similar virtual guide now at the Washington Dulles Airport, with the name of Paige. According to news reports, New York City's three major airports are expected to get their vitual guides sometime this summer. If the experiment works, passengers at other airports can soon expect to meet similar hologram advisers.

Among the messages the virtual guides offer are how to prepare for security inspection, location of flight gates, schedule changes, airport exits, taxi, bus and other services. She won’t tell passengers to click their heels and say, “There’s no place like home.”

So far, the virtual guides are not involved in security check-ins. However, with ever-improving technology, could it be possible passengers may soon experience virtual groping from grinning hologram agents?

According to USAToday, airlines are considering adding yet another nickel-and-dime cost to their already ever-increasing fees for baggage, carry-ons and other formerly free services.

You can already pay an extra $10 to $25 to board flights early on some airlines before the mobs of coach-seat peasants. Soon, passengers may be able to pay a similar extra fee to get off their flights first after landing.

When the new fee goes into effect, you lowly coach flyers will be able to see their first-class sneers close up as they strut by to exit before you.