Cape Canaveral & Kennedy Space Center

Photographs by Shaun O'Boyle 2008

 
Launch complex 37 viewed from the abandoned Launch Complex 34. These photographs are from a day visit to Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and Kennedy Space Center, Florida. There are several tours of the Cape offered at the Kennedy Space Center Visitors Complex. Highly recommended if you have any interest in the Apollo space missions of the 1960's and early 1970's. For myself, who was 9 years old when man first landed on the Moon, it is a fascinating place, full of the history, stories and superhero astronaut myths created when I was a child. If you have viewed my other photographs on this site, you have an idea that I am interested in the artifacts of great events, living history interest me, and here at Cape Canaveral there are still many of the original launch sites, rockets and block houses preserving the great events and efforts that lead up to man walking on the moon. Things will get more interesting with the upcoming return to the Moon in about 10 years, with a manned colony planned on the Moon, all part of NASA's Project Constellation.

 
Detail of Apollo Saturn V Second stage J-2 rocket engines. These 5 engines provided over 1 million pounds of thrust.

 
1950's era bee hive block house adjacent to launch pad, Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, containing instrumentation for rocket launch. The distance from the block house to the launch pad was only 400 feet, limited by the length a signal could reliably travel the copper wiring from the control room in the block house to the rocket. This close proximity to the rocket in turn determined the thickness of the walls.

 
Visitors sign in at the Air Force Space and Missile Museum at CCAFS. If you have an interest in the early Mercury and Gemini space programs that lead up to the Apollo missions then I highly recommend a visit. The museum preserves the original launch control equipment, as well as displays of the history of the early programs leading up to the Apollo missions.

 
Apollo Saturn V third stage J-2 engine, this is the engine that was used for the TLI, or Trans Lunar Injection burn that propelled the command and service modules out of earth orbit and on to the moon.

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I encourage comments on these photographs, please send along your thoughts to me at smo@oboylephoto.com   Please consider purchasing a print to help support this site. All photographs copyright Shaun O'Boyle 2008.