NASA Mission Control (historic proposal) (Cambridge, Massachusetts)
| military, NASA
USA /
Massachusetts /
Somerville /
Cambridge, Massachusetts
World
/ USA
/ Massachusetts
/ Somerville
World / United States / Massachusetts
military, NASA, historical layer / disappeared object
During the early days of the Space Race, NASA selected this site to be Mission Control as is was right on or next to the main MIT campus, and in those early days the space program drew strongly on MIT for their brain power. The Cambridge/MA JFK connection also contributed to this siting choice.
The plan to use this site was eventually scrapped and the new mission control facility built in Houston instead where it remains to this day.
Legal legend has it that Cambridge was so modded up at the time that the project got all snarled up due to special interests so NASA abandoned basing the space program in Cambridge. Another legend blames the relocation on LBJ (from Texas), who succeeded JFK as President and moved it for political reasons.
In preparation for the new mission control in Cambridge AT&T built/expanded their regional switch located two blocks to the North of this site.
On a related note, to this day the AT&T facility also provides communications up to Joe English Hill in New Boston, NH where the NRO controls spy satellites, and the plan was to combine NRO operations and NASA Mission Control operations all under one roof.
Today part of the site is home to the US Dept Of Transportation's Volpe Center, named after former Massachusetts Governor John Volpe, who was named Transportation Secretary to LBJ.
The plan to use this site was eventually scrapped and the new mission control facility built in Houston instead where it remains to this day.
Legal legend has it that Cambridge was so modded up at the time that the project got all snarled up due to special interests so NASA abandoned basing the space program in Cambridge. Another legend blames the relocation on LBJ (from Texas), who succeeded JFK as President and moved it for political reasons.
In preparation for the new mission control in Cambridge AT&T built/expanded their regional switch located two blocks to the North of this site.
On a related note, to this day the AT&T facility also provides communications up to Joe English Hill in New Boston, NH where the NRO controls spy satellites, and the plan was to combine NRO operations and NASA Mission Control operations all under one roof.
Today part of the site is home to the US Dept Of Transportation's Volpe Center, named after former Massachusetts Governor John Volpe, who was named Transportation Secretary to LBJ.
Nearby cities:
Coordinates: 42°21'54"N 71°5'9"W
- Former Site of Boston Naval Shipyard 2.7 km
- Fort Standish / Lovell's Island 13 km
- Hanscom Field / Hanscom Air Force Base (BED/KBED) 22 km
- Major David Scott Connolly Armed Forces Reserve Center 46 km
- Devens United States Army Reserve Center 48 km
- Fort Devens Impact Area 49 km
- Turner Drop Zone 51 km
- Fort Devens 53 km
- New Boston Remote Tracking Station(AFSCN) 79 km
- New Boston Air Force Station 80 km
- East Cambridge 0.6 km
- Area 4 0.9 km
- Wellington-Harrington 0.9 km
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1 km
- MIT (Neighbourhood) 1 km
- Charles River Esplanade Park 1.1 km
- Central Square 1.3 km
- University Park 1.3 km
- Cambridgeport 1.8 km
- Mid-Cambridge 2 km
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