Michoud Assembly Facility

Images of America: Louisiana

by Cindy Donze Manto

After an auspicious beginning as a royal land grant from French king Louis XV to a wealthy French citizen of New Orleans in 1763, the land Michoud Assembly Facility occupies remained in private ownership until 1940, when it was sold to the US government. Prior to World War II, the site was used to grow sugar, hunt muskrat, and build railroad and telephone lines. In 1941, the world’s largest industrial site was built, covering 43 acres of unobstructed, low-humidity, air-cooled space under one roof to construct C-46 cargo planes. The Korean War required the assembly of Sherman and Patton tanks there, while the space race compelled the design and assembly of the colossal Saturn I, IB, and V rocket boosters for the Apollo program that reported directly to Dr. Wernher von Braun. The 1970s saw the fabrication of the enormous external tank for the Space Shuttle program. Today, Michoud Assembly Facility continues to support the US space program by building major components for the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (or MPCV).

Genres: History

128 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2014

About the author

Cindy Donze Manto, a historian, urban planner, and the author of Michoud Assembly Facility and Stennis Space Center, has assembled a compilation of photographic images and maps culled from an array of libraries, museums, private collections, and NASA.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have a love/hate relationship with these Images of Modern America books. Several have been written on locations I've very interested in (NASA & Contractor Rocket/Missile Test Facilities) and they almost always include new and interesting photos. The thing I hate most is how small the photos are in the printed versions of these books. You will often find amazing, never-before-seen photos in such tiny size as to be almost pointless, from an information standpoint.

I did not have that problem with this book, because I read it as an e-book on my computer, and I was able to see the photos in a larger, more satisfying size. I was glad to get a look at this facility during the Apollo and Shuttle years. I haven't seen a lot published on this site, so I'm glad to have this. I wish there was a bit more variety in the photos. Quite a few seemed to show Wernher von Braun visiting the site, and it felt like they were included as if to say, "Look! He really was here!" I would have liked to see more about the test stands and associated facilities.

Space nerds everywhere will enjoy this spotlight on one of the lesser known NASA facilities. (But get it as an e-book!)