Kennedy Space Center: Gateway to Space.

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER: Gateway to Space DAVID WEST REYNOLDS

Marshy Cape Canaveral, jutting into the Atlantic, has been the launching point for the dreams of scientists, astronauts, and ordinary citizens. In this first complete history of the Kennedy Space Center, Reynolds, an author of several space books, chronicles how the Truman administration selected the site and completes the story with accounts of a half-century's worth of missions begun there. Reynolds explains the entire process up to and including launch. In 1950, the cape launched its first rocket, which flew east over the Atlantic to avoid any threat to populated areas. Soon, pressure from the Soviets led to the pursuit of a human mission to space from the Cape. NASA initiated Project Mercury in 1958, and in 1961, Alan Shepard took off from the Florida site as the United States' first astronaut. Reynolds chronicles the Apollo moon missions and the development of the space shuttle, and he provides an overview of space missions still planned to launch from this historic site. Firefly, 2006, 248 p., color photos, hardcover, $40.00.