![]() Grissom, White, and Chaffee were three of the most decorated and qualified pilots in the American Space Program. The launch was set for February 21 st of 1967 but for the three pilots of the mission that day would never come. After years of trial, error, and slow but sure progress the LC-34 was scheduled to host its most significant launch to date: the first manned mission of the Apollo program, the Apollo one. The complex was to be a hub of the escalation of the space race, as President Kennedy announced America’s new goal of a lunar landing.įrom 161 to 1967 LC-34 was the designated launch pad for the Saturn series – unmanned rockets designed to test the limits of what was needed for a lunar flight. Just two months later the construction LC-34 was completed. The USSR, of course, achieved this in April of 1961, when Yuri Gagarin piloted the Vostok spacecraft into orbit. In 1960 when work began on the launch complex American and the USSR were racing to be the first to launch a person into space. LC-34 was built at the height of the Space Race. Chaffee – but at the time it was built it was NASA’s pride and joy. The complex exists today as a memorial to one of the most tragic events in NASA’s history – the deaths of Command Pilot Virgil I. A decades-old spray painted notice can still be read today – “Abandon in Place”. Though worn and rusted, the towering four-legged concrete platform remains an impressive sight. The weathered complex still stands as it did when it was shut down in 1968. In a place full of history, Launch Complex 34 stands as one of the most striking sites open to visitors. ![]() Not far from the clean, polished, state of the art infrastructure lays a dark piece of NASA’s history: the abandoned remains of Launch Complex 34. Though the immaculate, towering white buildings of the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral Florida are the last place you’d expect to encounter the paranormal, there are traces of a tragic history which rests alongside NASA’s historic achievements. NASA is usually associated with some of humanity’s most stunning and dramatic scientific accomplishments. ![]()
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