A History of the Kennedy Space Center

by Kenneth J. Lipartito, Orville R. Butler

This first comprehensive history of the Kennedy Space Center, NASA's famous launch facility located at Cape Canaveral, Florida, reveals the vital but largely unknown work that takes place before the rocket is lit. Though the famous Vehicle Assembly Building and launch pads dominate the flat Florida landscape at Cape Canaveral and attract 1.5 million people each year to its visitor complex, few members of the public are privy to what goes on there beyond the final outcome of the flaring rocket as it lifts into space. With unprecedented access to a wide variety of sources, including the KSC archives, other NASA centers, the National Archives, and individual and group interviews and collections, Lipartito and Butler explore how the methods and technology for preparing, testing, and launching spacecraft have evolved over the last 45 years. Their story includes the Mercury and Gemini missions, the Apollo lunar program, the Space Shuttle, scientific missions and robotic spacecraft, and the International Space Station, as well as the tragic accidents of Challenger and Columbia. Throughout, the authors reveal the unique culture of the people who work at KSC and make Kennedy distinct from other parts of NASA. As Lipartito and Butler show, big NASA projects, notably the Space Shuttle and the International Space Station, had much to learn on the ground before they made it to space. Long before a spacecraft started its ascent, crucial work had been done, work that combined the muscular and mundane with the high tech and applied the vital skills and knowledge of the men and women of KSC to the design of vehicles and missions. The authors challenge notions that successful innovation was simply the result of good design alone and argue that, with large technical systems, real world experience actually made the difference between bold projects that failed and innovations that stayed within budget and produced consistent results. The authors pay particular attention to "operational knowledge" developed by KSC--the insights that came from using and operating complex technology. This work makes it abundantly clear that the processes performed by ground operations are absolutely vital to success.

Genres: Space, History

496 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2007

Reviews

[Tyler · Rating 4 out of 5]

After my trip to the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex this year, I decided to take a look at this history of the facility written by historians Kenneth Lipartito and Orville Butler. The authors explain that until the twentieth century, Cape Canaveral was an obscure spit of land where the alligators far outnumbered the people. Yet the location of the Banana River Naval Air Station there in the 1930s convinced U.S. military officials that the location held value. Military officials decided to launch rockets there, beginning in the summer of 1950, knowing that the Cape's sparse population and proximity to the Atlantic Ocean would make the location ideal for that purpose. By the 1960s, NASA had christened the Kennedy Space Center there, making the east coast of Florida a gateway to outer space. Lipartito and Butler proceed to follow the development of the facility from the Mercury through Shuttle eras, with an eye toward convincing readers that the prelaunch operations work done by civil servants and contractors is one of the most essential elements in making spaceflight a reality. Although the people who design vehicles and missions elsewhere in the United States may receive the bulk of the credit, the operations personnel in Florida have had the critical responsibility of placing an idea to the test. For instance, NASA officials touted the Space Shuttle as a vehicle that could be prepared for its next flight with a turnaround time of just 160 hours, but the operators in Florida found the task of servicing each orbiter more complex and time consuming than that prediction indicated. The book details the shuttle era very thoroughly, but since the book dates to 2007, I wonder how the authors would integrate the rise of commercial spaceflight at KSC since then into their work. Although the book could have been more engaging, I think Lipartito and Butler have made a great case for why the Kennedy Space Center matters, both from a standpoint of understanding spaceflight and from a standpoint of understanding technology operators more broadly.

[Ted Daniels · Rating 3 out of 5]

I normally enjoy reading about NASA and the space program, but this book is a little dry. The author admits at the outset that the book was sponsored and funded by the Kennedy Space Center. I guess it's safe to assume he will not dish any dirt or reveal any deep dark secrets.