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Cape
Canaveral Air Force Station and Kennedy Space Center
from the Atlantic coast. Here they have managed one
of the great events in human history, to land a man on
the Moon and return him safely to the Earth. This is
a study of our visual legacy of those events, a look,
fifty years later, at the obsolete rockets, early
computers, scientific hardware, abandoned utilitarian
architecture, and the sweeping launch pad landscapes
still present at the Cape and KSC.
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Old
Apollo Saturn V launch pad 39B, now a Space Shuttle launch
pad, viewed from the wildlife refuge that borders Kennedy
Space Center. These photographs are from
an ongoing project
to photograph
Cape Canaveral
Air Force
Station
and Kennedy
Space Center. I was 9 years old when
man
first landed on the Moon, so interest in space travel
was very much a part of my developing years. It is a
fascinating place, still preserving hints and locations
of the age of early space travel, places where steely
eyed astronauts climbed to the top of their
steaming rocket and blasted into outer space;
super hero astronaut myths were created here, and some
of the hardware
that
allowed
these
missions to be successfully completed is still here,
rusting away in the salty Florida air. |
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Space
Shuttle Discovery on launch pad 39A, 8 days
before launch. The shuttle shown here may be in it's
final year
of service,
the final
missions
are
to complete the international space station. |
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| Thor-Able rocket, the first in a long line of missiles
which include the modern day Atlas rockets. The Thor-Able
rocket launched the Pioneer 1 spacecraft in October 1958,
the first launch of a spacecraft by the newly formed National
Aeronautics and Space Administration at Cape Canaveral Air
Force Base. |
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Titan
I Intercontinental Ballistic Missile first stage engine.
These missiles were designed
for intercontinental delivery of nuclear warheads, and
were the United States first true multi-stage rocket.
The early space program and military programs were closely
linked, sharing technologies and launch areas. Many of
the rocket designs were direct decendents of the German
V2 rocket, and in fact were designed by some of the same
german scientist, brought over from Germany at the
end of WWII.
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