Cape Canaveral - Then & Now Tour

Wednesday October 24, 2007 - CAPE CANAVERAL AIR FORCE STATION: If you ever make it to the Space Center, this is THE tour to take! It's about 4.5 hours long, and covers the entire history of the Cape... from the very first launch all the way to the Shuttle. Below each set of photos is a brief description of the various launch sites.

Above is Launch Complex 5/6. Looking out from the blockhouse control room toward PAD-5, you can see a replica of MR-3 (Mercury Redstone 3)... a tribute to the launch of Alan Shepard aboard his Freedom 7 capsule. He was the first American in space, May 5, 1961. The windows are all nearly 12" thick and made of many panes of tempered glass sandwiching compressed gas to eliminate moisture. The blockhouse (or launch control) was very close to the pad, and yes, that is THE button they pushed to launch the rocket! (the photo on the lower right is a NASA photo of Mercury Redstone 1 on Pad 5... an interesting story can be found by clicking this link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury-Redstone_1)

This is Launch Complex 26, site of the Jupiter and Jupiter-C launches. Most notably the US Air Force launched Explorer 1 - America's first satellite - on February 1, 1958. LC-26 now houses the Air Force Space & Missle Museum, and has numerous indoor and outdoor displays, including a V-2 rocket engine. The launch control room is preserved exactly as it was back in the 60's. In the background of the picture on the lower left is Launch Complex 37b, containing a Delta IV rocket that will be launced in a couple of weeks with a USAF satellite.