U.S. Space & Rocket Center...

Since Huntsville, Alabama was the home to von Braun and his fellow rocket scientists, this was the birthplace for the U.S. rocket program. It only made sense then for NASA to house its Marshall Space Fight Center here to develop key space transportation and propulsion technologies. And as a tribute to all the work done, the U.S. Space & Rocket Center was created.



One of the main cornerstones of the center is the actual Pathfinder orbiter [above]. The Pathfinder was in essence a full size model that NASA used to prepare places like Kennedy Space Center assembly building and launch pads for the new shuttle program. Up to this point everything was built around the Saturn V program and so had to be refitted. Which also makes it appropriate that this center also has an actual Saturn V rocket on display in the Rocket Park [here to the right laying on its side broken out in the three different stages of launch]. And besides these two inspirational pieces visitors can trace the entire evolution of rocketry from the early formation through the shuttle program.


Inside of the center visitors will also find a very impressive museum that houses the actual Apollo 16 command module. And besides the Apollo program, there are also capsules from the Mercury and Gemini programs along with the trainers that the astronauts used some of which we were even able to crawl into. Anybody can read about the space program but through the power of museums like these, you can actually feel like you are apart of it.