Kennedy Space Center Launch Complex 39

 NASA, interesting place, missile launch facility

The only launch complex at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (all of the other launch facilities are at the nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station), LC-39, located on Merritt Island, was purchased by NASA in 1963 for use as the Saturn V "Moonport," in which the Saturn V rocket would be assembled and launched at one of two (originally five pads were planned) in keeping with the goal of landing a man on the Moon by 1970. After Apollo, LC-39 was modified for Space Shuttle operations, with LC-39A seeing the first Shuttle launch (STS-1) in 1981, followed by LC-39B (STS-51L, the infamous "Challenger Disaster") in 1986. Currently, LC-39A is still in use as a Shuttle launch pad, but LC-39B, starting in Summer, 2007, will start undergoing major structural modifications in support of the new Ares I "Stick" rocket, which will launch the first manned Orion spacecraft mission in 2014. With the completion of STS-125, contractors converted LC-39B for the successful test flight of Ares I-X on October 28, 2009.