Historic Launch Pad Blown Up to Make Room for New Rockets

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — With hundreds of aerospace workers shouting the countdown, a historic launch pad was blown up Thursday with 180 pounds of explosives to make way for a new line of rockets.

“5-4-3-2-1! Blasting into the future!” Lockheed Martin Corp. launch manager Adrian Laffitte proclaimed as Launch Complex 41 came down in a party atmosphere.

Amid pops and booms and flames and smoke, the two launch towers, one 200 feet high, the other 300 feet, crumpled to the ground in a heap of 7 million pounds of steel to be recycled.

A few hundred rocket scientists and launch pad workers screamed with excitement from 2,500 feet away as the towers toppled like falling trees in a matter of seconds. Hundreds of other workers at Cape Canaveral Air Station and adjoining Kennedy Space Center watched.

Built in 1965, Launch Complex 41 was the starting point for NASA’s Viking missions to Mars, Voyager missions to the outer planets and numerous spy satellites. In all, 27 Titan rockets blasted off from the pad.

Like others in the crowd, engineer Troxel Fitzpatrick couldn’t help but feel a bit sad. “History coming down,” he observed.

But, boy, what a thrill it was to blow up a pad on purpose, especially for people in a line of work that loathes explosions.

Lockheed Martin opted for Thursday’s $1-million demolition-by-explosives to save time and money. It is expected to take only a month or two to haul away all the steel for recycling.