A Detailed Look Into the History of the Kennedy Space Center

President John F. Kennedy decided to send an American astronaut to the moon and NASA wanted to expand this opportunity at Cape Canaveral and build a spaceport for manned lunar launches. During this era, NASA activated its Launch Operations Center, today known as Kennedy Space Center, granting the lunar launch site equal status with other agency field centers.

Soon, the construction of the Vehicle Assembly Building came into being. On 9 Nov 1967, an unmanned Saturn B blasts off on the first test flight of the rocket that launched moon-bound American astronauts. It was the first exclusive launch from John F. Kennedy Space Center.

American astronauts Jim Lovell, William Anders, and Frank Borman blast off from launch pad 39A on the Apollo 8 mission. It was the first manned launch of a Saturn V rocket, the first manned launch from the famous Kennedy Space Center.

Skylab, America’s first space station was launched atop a Saturn V rocket. NASA wished to keep Skylab in orbit till a space shuttle could travel to it. But an enormous solar activity dragged the station towards the upper reaches of the atmosphere.

Skylab entered the Indian Ocean on July 11, 1979, showering debris over a path that stretched massively to a sparsely populated region of western Australia. A year after the historic Apollo 11 moon-landing mission in 1970, the workforce was cut down to 15,000.

The shuttle program had created its boom and bust.

This was the era when NASA’s boldest launch came into being. On the morning of April 12, 1981, astronauts Bob Crippen and John Young had strapped into Columbia for NASA’s first shuttle flight. The spacecraft would be the first of its kind to blast off like a rocket and land like an airplane.

NASA’s first 24 shuttle missions were quite a thing. Astronauts donned Buck Rogers-style jetpacks and flew away from the shuttle, with zero safety. They retrieved the satellites, fixed solar explorers, and deployed top-secret military spacecraft and communication satellites.

During this era, NASA launched major space science and planetary exploration missions when the shuttle fleet returned to flight. A majority of the military shuttle missions were classified as top secret.

Shuttle Atlantis had blasted off and headed towards the first shuttle docking with the Russian space station Mir. Around 10 shuttle missions were launched to Mir during the joint U.S. – Russian Assembly of the International Space Station.

NASA launch commentator Lisa Malone and the Kennedy Space Center Shuttle launch team had sent John Herschel Glenn Jr. into space 36 years after the Project Mercury astronaut had become the first American to orbit Earth.

Discovery had become the nation’s shuttle fleet leader around this time and had been the orbiter that returned the nation to space post the 1986 Challenger accident. During this time, NASA was set on completing the task of finishing the International Space Station.

Records show that Atlantis and NASA’s final four shuttle astronauts had landed on Runway 15 at the Kennedy Space Center. After 30 long years, the shuttle had earned its place in history, and NASA’s 135th and final shuttle mission had come to its end.

Today, Shawn Quinn foresees great things for NASA at the Kennedy Space Center.