In 1961, a Redstone rocket sent Alan Sheppard into a suborbital flight after the Soviet Union’s cosmonaut Yuri Gargan successfully made an orbit in one revolution around the Earth, and later that same year, the Von Braun team developed the Saturn I, with a successful test launch. Then from 1968 to 1972, the Apollo program successfully carried out one mission around the Earth, three missions around the moon, and finally sent six missions that allowed twelve humans to walk on the moon.
The MSFC has been involved with the launch of the Hubble Space Telescope and also with the creation of the International Space Station (ISS), building and designing modules that would become a part of it. Science done on the ISS is also monitored within the Payload Operations Center at MSFC.
Today, Huntsville, Alabama, displays its history through its museums such as the Space and Rocket Center and carries on its legacy through Space Camp, which has drawn almost a million trainees of every age and from all over the world since its inception by Von Braun. The most notable signs of space exploration in northern Alabama are its model rockets standing tall and proud at the Space and Rocket Center. Hopefully funds will be obtained to save the rocket (or erect a new one) that once stood at the welcome center in Limestone County, allowing others to learn about the role Alabama plays in space exploration.
Learn more:
- https://www.spacecamp.com/about/ourhistory
- http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/s137#:~:text=The%20National%20Aeronautics%20and%20Space,at%20Redstone%20Arsenal%20in%20Huntsville.
- https://www.al.com/news/2023/03/10-million-fundraiser-proposed-to-save-alabama-rest-stop-rocket-questions-loom.html
- http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/Article/h-2349
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