Gateway to the Moon; Building the Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex

Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2001. First University Press of Florida paperback edition. Second printing [stated]. Trade paperback. Very good. 316, xcvii, [3] pages. Frontis. Footnotes. Illustrations. Source Notes. Bibliography. Index. Former owner's name, date, and commentary on half-title. Though volumes on the space program are legion, Benson and Faherty's takes a different tack by tracing the building of the Kennedy Space Center launch complex itself. Originally part of a series by NASA, this includes interviews with many of the key players, as well as pix and design schemes. A nice addition to traditional space flight collections. The John F. Kennedy Space Center (KSC) is one of ten National Aeronautics and Space Administration field centers, and is NASA's Center of Excellence for launch and payload processing systems. Located on the east coast of Florida, KSC is adjacent to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (CCAFS). The management of the two entities work very closely together, share resources, and even own facilities on each other's property. KSC has been NASA's primary launch center of human spaceflight since December 1968. Launch operations for the Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs were carried out from Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39 and managed by KSC. Though the first Apollo flights, and all Project Mercury and Project Gemini flights took off from CCAFS, the launches were managed by KSC and its previous organization, the Launch Operations Directorate. Starting with the fourth Gemini mission, the NASA launch control center in Florida (Mercury Control Center, later the Launch Control Center) began handing off control of the vehicle to the Mission Control Center shortly after liftoff; prior missions held control throughout the entire mission. Additionally, the center manages launch of robotic and commercial crew missions, researches food production and In-Situ Resource Utilization for off Earth exploration,[7] and more. Since 2010, the center has worked to become a multi-user spaceport through industry partnerships, even adding a new launch pad (LC-39C) in 2015. There are about 700 facilities grouped across the center's 144,000 acres. Among the unique facilities at KSC are the 525 ft tall Vehicle Assembly Building for stacking NASA's largest rockets, Operations and Checkout Building which houses the astronaut crew quarters, and 3-mile-long Shuttle Landing Facility. There is also a Visitor Complex open to the public on site.