The Mercury, Gemini and the Apollo Missions of the late 1950s and 60s still remain one of NASA’s greatest achievements — one that enabled humans, for the first time in history, to leave the surface of the Earth for another heavenly body. This monumental task was made possible through the hard work and genius of thousands of engineers, and the incredible infrastructure they built along the coast of Florida. With the advent of reusable rockets, private space programs and a change in NASA’s goals, unfortunately, many of these facilities were abandoned and left to the elements. American photographer Roland Miller has spent 25 years documenting these buildings in his photographs before they rot and crumble to the ground. Indeed, Miller estimates that about half of the locales he shot have already disappeared since he started shooting.
V2 Launch Site with Hermes A-1 Rocket, Launch Complex 33 Gantry, White Sands Missile Range, NM, 2006. “One of the earliest launch complexes built. Used to test launch captured German V2 rockets. Many of the features in LC 33's blockhouse made there way into other blockhouses at Cape Canaveral--like multiple panes of glass laminated together to allow for protected viewing of the launch from the blockhouse.”
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