Rocket City, Alabama: Space history and an eye on the future

The birthplace of NASA’s rockets lies in the land of cotton, hundreds of miles from Cape Canaveral’s launch pads.

From the first U.S. satellites and astronauts, to the Apollo moon shots, to the space shuttles and now NASA’s still-in-development Space Launch System, rocket history inundates Huntsville, Alabama.

Huntsville’s nickname, Rocket City, is thanks largely to Wernher von Braun and his team of fellow German-born rocketeers who settled here in the 1950s. The city has long been home to the Army’s Redstone Arsenal and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. But now it’s attracting new generations of engineers, scientists and techies. Tourists come for the history. Kids and adults come to learn at Space Camp.

It was von Braun, Marshall’s first director, who wanted to showcase Huntsville’s rocket development and testing. Thus was born the U.S. Space and Rocket Center, an official NASA tourist spot that houses one of only three remaining Saturn V moon rockets, this one a National Historic Landmark.

Von Braun planted the seed for Space Camp as well. Why band camp, football camp and cheerleading camp, but no science camp, he wondered. He didn’t live long enough to see Space Camp open in 1982 at the rocket center, but since then, 800,000 youngsters and grown-up space fans have attended daylong, weekend or weeklong sessions with space, robotics and aviation themes.

Its address? One Tranquility Base, Huntsville. As in “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed,” words spoken by astronaut Neil Armstrong when he landed on the moon with Buzz Aldrin.

The DNA from America’s original rocket force still permeates Huntsville, according to Deborah Barnhart, the U.S. Space and Rocket Center’s executive director. It’s Alabama’s number one paid tourist attraction, with bus tours into the restricted Redstone and Marshall, and wild rocket-style rides like Space Shot and G-Force Accelerator.

“We’re all space geeks and we love it,” Barnhart said.

But Hunstville isn’t just about history. Ongoing research aims to return astronauts to the moon and on to Mars. “We’re looking to the future, really looking to travel in space, trying to figure out the problems of living and working in space,” Barnhart said.