Cape Canaveral: Then and Now

Part of Florida trip 2011

At least until the Shuttle program ends, there are two public bus tours offered by the Kennedy Space Center concession: a large, family-oriented tour that concentrates on the Shuttle program and the apparatus that makes it go, and a smaller (maximum 60 visitors per day) tour that brings visitors over to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to see the Air Force Space and Missile Museum and a few of the many historic launch facilities on the south (Air Force) end of the Cape. Both tours end up at the Saturn V center, an indoor theater and exhibit hall located near the VIP viewing stands for Shuttle launches. Inside the exhibit hall, a Saturn V rocket is displayed, in segments, along with Apollo Program-related artifacts such as moon rocks and spacecraft modules. One of the two theater presentations recreates the launch of Apollo 8, the first human flight into lunar orbit, and the first flight from the nearby LC-34.

Scott and I, both being history-of-technology buffs, took the second tour. Photography is not allowed on most of the CCAFS property, except in a few locations where the tour bus stops. Most of the launch complexes on the Cape consisted of two identical launch pads, which were controlled from a nearby “blockhouse”. Each complex was built for a specific launch vehicle, and when that rocket class was retired, its launch complex was retired as well: since the rockets were being designed and launched at a rapid rate in the 1950s and 1960s, it was considered safer to use specialized launch facilities rather than trying to build fewer pads that needed to be reconfigured between every launch. Most of the structures on the launch pads, other than the pads themselves and the blockhouses, were made of steel, and were scrapped at the end of their vehicle's operational life rather than being left to rust in the corrosive salt air of the Atlantic coast. Electronic systems, too, were frequently scrapped; natives of central Florida who were around at the time report seeing large volumes of ex-government electronic components in radio shops and surplus houses during the 1960s.

Our first stop after crossing the bridge onto CCAFS property was Launch Complex 26, where the Air Force Space and Missile Museum is located in a two-room concrete building. Just to the north and east of LC-26 is the still-active SLC-17, home of the Boeing (ex-McDonnell Douglas) Delta II rocket. After the last military Delta II launch, the Air Force leased SLC-17 to NASA, which in turn sublet it to United Launch Alliance (a joint venture of Boeing and Lockheed Martin), which will use it to launch the last scheduled east-coast Delta II payload, NASA's GRAIL (Gravity Recovery And Interior Laboratory) lunar-exploration satellite. There are apparently a number of Delta IIs still available for sale should you happen to have the right payload and a deep pocket. South and west of LC-26 is LC-5/6. (The authorities here have not been especially consistent in their numbering of launch complexes. Early complexes were given one number per pad, like 5 and 6; later complexes were given letter suffixes for each pad. The southernmost complex is LC-29, the northernmost is LC-39B, and the highest-numbered is LC-47, which is wedged between SLC-37 and SLC-40. The Air Force added an “S” to “LC” at some point for all of its active launch facilities, but NASA never followed suit, and the retired complexes were left alone as well.)

(I've been somewhat inconsistent here with respect to using italics for rockets, rocket families, launch vehicles, and missions. I have some feeling that some of them ought to get that distinction but was never sure which ones.)