Apollo space base: one small change for Cape Canaveral

a kid, I was always fascinated by NASA and the Apollo astronauts’ moon flights.

The Apollo missions all took off from Cape Kennedy, but the area seems to be known as Cape Canaveral nowadays.

Why – and when – did the name change? – J.

The area was only known as Cape Kennedy from 1963-73.

It was named by Spanish explorers in the first half of the 16th Century as Cabo Cañaveral. The name “Canaveral” (Cañaveral in Spanish, meaning “reed bed” or “sugarcane plantation”) is the third oldest surviving European place name in the US.

Cape Canaveral became the test site for US missiles and the first to be launched there was a German-designed V-2 rocket.

In 1959, the first successful test firing of a Titan intercontinental ballistic missile was accomplished.

NASA’S Project Mercury and Gemini space flights were launched from Cape Canaveral, as were Apollo flights using the Saturn V rocket. President Lyndon Johnson ordered Canaveral change its name to Cape Kennedy in 1963, shortly after President Kennedy’s assassination.

It kept the name until 1973, when it reverted to Cape Canaveral. Cape Canaveral was chosen for rocket launches to take advantage of the Earth’s rotation.

The linear velocity of the Earth’s surface is greatest towards the equator and the relatively southerly location of the cape allows rockets to take advantage of this by launching eastward, in the same direction as the Earth’s rotation.