The Space Age changed Florida forever, drawing thousands of new workers to the state and transforming Cape Canaveral into a hub of aeronautics, electronics design, and manufacturing.
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This 15,000 pound thrust liquid hydrogen fueled RL10 engine was designed and developed at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft's Florida Research and Development Center for NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center to power the Centaur and Saturn S-IV rockets.
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Transition section of a jet engine being seam-welded.
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A J-57 engine, shown here during testing, is capable of developing more than 10,000 pounds of thrust. The axial-flow jet engines powered several of the nation's first line fighter planes including the Air Force's F-100, F-101, and F-102A, and the Navy's F-4D and F8U shipboard fighters.
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One of the greatest successes witnessed at the Kennedy Space Center was the successful development and repeated launching of reusable orbiting spacecraft, the space shuttles.
Launched atop conventional rockets, the space shuttle reenters the earth’s atmosphere at more than 18,000 miles an hour.
More than a hundred space shuttle flights have sent orbiters to study space and map the earth, construct and outfit the International Space Center, successfully deploy the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, and perform ongoing repairs of the Hubble Space Telescope.
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Photographed on October 1, 1980.
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The Space Shuttle Columbia is slowly raised and prepared for mating with its external tank and solid rocket boosters which will complete assembly of the first Space Shuttle vehicle.
Photographed on November 24, 1980.
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Space Shuttle Columbia lifts off Pad 39A, with Astronauts John Young and Bob Crippen for the first space shuttle mission. After fifty-four and a half hours of testing the shuttle's systems, they landed at Edwards Airforce Base in California.
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Left to Right: Sally Ride, John Fabian, Robert Crippen, Norman Thagard, Rick Hauck.
Autographed by Sally K. Ride.
