So, why Florida?
Published on Mar 11, 2007 at 9:44 pm.
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Filed under NASA, rockets.
Yesterday, I posted about the Soyuz launch site being built in French Guiana. So, if launching from near the equator is so preferable, why does the United States launch mostly from Florida? All manned missions have launched from Cape Canaveral, and so have most unmanned missions.
There are several reasons that the first space missions were launched from Cape Canaveral. One of the most compelling reasons was that there were already launch facilities there. Spaceflight grew out of military rocket experiments. Missiles were being built bigger and more powerful and with longer range. These missiles needed testing. Early rockets had a tendency to blow up, so launching over populated areas was out of the question. These early rockets were also militarily very important and classified. So, the testing facilities had to be within the United States, and near the coast so that the missile flights could go for hundreds of miles (or even thousands) without passing over anyone. Two missile ranges were constructed within the continental United States, one on each coast. The Eastern Missile Range was built at Cape Canaveral. The cape jutted out from the rest of Florida, so it made an ideal place to launch. Rockets that went out of control still would likely be over water. The missile range extended out into the Atlantic Ocean. Despite the goal of missiles not flying over anyone’s head, the missile range extended over the Bahamas. A variety of launch pads were constructed, each one dedicated to a particular type of rocket. The earliest US launches were the Vanguard program, a civilian program, and various extensions of military missiles. The launch facilities were already in place at Cape Canaveral for the military rockets, and it was easier to build a civilian launch facility next to the military ones since all the other supporting infrastructure was already there. The first manned missions, Mercury and Gemini, used Redstone, Atlas, and Titan rockets, all of which already had launch facilities at Cape Canaveral. So, naturally, that made for a natural site to launch the first manned missions. But, NASA was created as a civilian agency, and a decision was made to build a separate civilian launch facility. That facility became the Kennedy Space Center, built on Merritt Island adjacent to the Air Force’s missile range on Cape Canaveral.
So, why was the civilian spaceport built at essentially the same location as the military launch sites? Well, there are lots of reasons that this was done. One major reason is that when the manned space program began, international cooperation in space exploration was almost non-existent. That meant launching from US territory. But, Puerto Rico is a little closer to the equator, as is Hawaii. However, both locations were remote from the mainland US. Building launch facilities there would increase costs in construction and shipping. At the time, the United States has a lock-in with the Canal Zone in Panama. That, too, is closer to the equator. However, that land was leased, and would eventually revert to Panama. But, one major reason is simply cost. There was already a lot of infrastructure built for the military launch sites. Much of that could also be used to support NASA launches.
Florida is quite far south within the continental United States. The latitude at the Kennedy Space Center is 28.6 N. At that latitude, the rotation of the Earth still gives nearly 88% of the speed that you would get at the equator. This is still nuch better than Baikonur, the Russian site, at which the rotation of the Earth provides only about 69% of the equatorial speed.
Furthermore, such a major installation like a spaceport, particularly for missions to the Moon, is something that generates a LOT of politics. The decision to put the launch sites in Florida was as much political as anything else. Florida had a major political influence in Washington, as did Texas (which is one reason that the Manned Spaceflight Center, later the Johnson Space Center, was placed in Texas). The first US manned missions were launched from Florida, and so Florida politicians wanted the rest of the missions to be launched from there. That, combined with the existing infrastructure in the area for launches, secured Florida as the site for the space center later to be named the Kennedy Space Center.
-Astroprof
(Images courtesy Wikimedia)
