In the decade after the first rocket lifted off into the skies above Cape Canaveral, the launch site became the focal point of America’s efforts to explore beyond Earth. To meet President John F. Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon, a expansive new site was needed. That location became NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, a premier multi-user spaceport now commemorating its 60th anniversary.
During the 30-year history of the Space Shuttle Program, many important payloads were launched. From the Hubble Space Telescope to the International Space Station, history was made. However, the most crucial cargo was human. The team assigned to ensure crews were safely sealed into their spacecraft before they rocketed into orbit was the Closeout Crew led by Travis Tod Thompson.
“Liftoff of six astronaut heroes and one American legend,” said NASA Public Affairs commentator, Lisa Malone, as the Space Shuttle Discovery launched off in late 1998. America’s quintessential hero, John Glenn, was returning to space 36 years after he made history as the first of his compatriots to reach Earth orbit.
In the ten months since the arrival of the Space Shuttle Discovery at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, the processing team was able to overcome numerous hurdles. The late August day dawned with clear skies on a hot summer day. The launch team and the astronaut crew were ready.
From the time the Space Shuttle Discovery first arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, preparations for the spacecraft’s maiden voyage poised many challenges for the team at the Florida spaceport. In spite of these issues, the new orbiter went on to fly a highly successful initial mission. Altogether, Discovery flew 39 times becoming the workhorse of the five-orbiter fleet.
The Space Shuttle era was one of superlatives. Everything was bigger than life. The factoids associated with the program are examples of the historic size, capabilities and achievements of the shuttle and the team that made their achievements possible.
From the Space Shuttle’s first flight in 1981 to its final mission in 2011, thousands of professionals made the program a technical marvel. On the front line were highly skilled mechanics, technicians and engineers whose innovative work launched landmark missions such as deployment of the Space Telescope and assembly of the Space Station. For one elite group of spacecraft operators, their workstation was the space program’s “inner sanctum” — the shuttle’s crew modules.
Chuck Hollinshead, former director of Public Affairs at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, died Jan. 25, 2021 in Asheville, North Carolina. He was 89. Hollinshead helped shape the course of media services at the Florida spaceport and throughout the agency over 28 years, 17 as director of Public Affairs.
In 1976, America’s second-generation human space program came together with an iconic story line inspired by the nation’s first efforts to “boldly go where no one has gone before.” Key players in the popular televisions series, Star Trek, attended the rollout of NASA’s prototype Space Shuttle orbiter, Enterprise.
The Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB, is the most recognizable structure at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. It is so big, it can be seen from miles away. Now that the center is a premier, multi-user spaceport, industry partners soon will share the facility. It also is the only building in the world where human spaceflight rockets have been prepared for trips to low-Earth orbit, the Moon and — in the future – to Mars.