|Huntsville: Rocket City, USA|
Huntsville owes most of its present day prestige and nickname of "Rocket City" to Dr. Wernher von Braun. Von Braun was a German scientist who moved to Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville in 1950 and was the leading authority in space technology. Huntsville's Von Braun Center is named in his honor. During the 1960's, Huntsville was the fastest growing city in the U.S. because of the President John F. Kennedy's emphasis on the space industry. Today it is the home of the Marshall Space Flight Center, which has provided NASA with 32 Saturns, including six used to land astronauts on the moon. There are more details on the history of MSFC. To find out what is currently planned in the space program, see NASA's Office of Space Flight site and the Space Shuttle Launch schedule. The Huntsville Report may be of interest to those in the business community. It's a complete digest on procurement activities for the U.S. Army-AMCOM at Redstone Arsenal, NASA-Marshall Space Flight Center, Army Corps of Engineers, Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Eglin Air Force Base, Florida and other significant related governmental activities. There's a fee for subscribers, but visitors can view previous issues for free.
Sightseers and visitors to Huntsville enjoy touring the US Space and Rocket Center, the world's largest space museum, open all year round. The more adventuresome traveler may choose to enroll in Space Camp , founded in 1981 and the shooting location for the movie, "Space Camp" made in 1986. At camp, participants use Space Shuttle orbiter mockups during simulated launch to landing missions. They also learn the basics of shuttle operations, the science and history of the space program and use authentic astronaut simulators to experience how it might feel to walk on the moon, perform tasks on a space walk or the difficulty of controlling a spinning spacecraft. They even design a space station! Over 300,000 people have graduated from this special "school" to date.
For all you "big kids," in Corporate America, you might talk the boss into Corporate SPACE ACADEMY which integrates the excitement of our nation's space program with corporate development training to promote leadership and teamwork, a truly unique and refreshing way to get spaced out at work! If you've always wanted to be an astronaut but can't make it to Space Camp or Space Academy, the next best thing is to go to Huntsville Area Rocketry Association and try out their flight simulation online under Interactive Utilities. For more information on NASA, visit their homepage.
If you find it hard to take your eyes off the stars, you'll want to explore these possibilities:
Corporate SPACE ACADEMY
Corporate training with astronaut thinking and survival skills.
NASA's network of antennas that supports interplanetary spacecraft missions and radio and radar astronomy observations for the exploration of the solar system.
Werner von Braun
German scientist who moved to Huntsville in the 1950's to work on the US space program.
Hubble Space Telescope
Cooperative program of the European Space Agency and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to operate a long-lived space-based observatory.
Area Rocketry Association
Local organization dedicated to space technology.
Huntsville site for NASA where engineers and scientist work on designing and manufacturing space craft.
Official site for the government's space program.
Air and Space Museum
Maintains the largest collection of historic air and spacecraft in the world for the Smithsonian Institution.
Office of Space
Information on current space programs.
Info about the military base in Huntsville, AL.
Adults and children can go to school and find out what it would be like to be an astronaut.
Keep up to date on the schedule of the latest space shuttle launch at this site.
Government procurement information available for subscribers. Public may access past reports.
US Space and Rocket
World's largest space museum in located in Huntsville.
Von Braun Civic
Community center in Huntsville named after Dr. Werner Von Braun.