Cape Canaveral rocket pad blasted into history

October 14, 1999
Web posted at: 11:38 a.m. EDT (1538 GMT)

(CNN) -- Some 200 pounds of explosives toppled a massive, towering launch complex at Cape Canaveral Thursday in a planned detonation that marked the end of one 34-year era of spaceflight and the start of a new one.

Lockheed Martin and Air Force officials set off the explosion at Launch Complex 41 just after 10 a.m., with a blast at the steel and concrete base of a 5 million-pound tower. That was followed within seconds by a blast at the base of an adjacent 2 million-pound tower.

The two heavily strutted, 20-plus story towers -- once the site of NASA launches to Mars and beyond -- remained largely intact as they fell. Hundreds of space complex workers looked on and cheered during the event, which lasted less than a minute.

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1, blasting," said Lockheed Martin's launch manager Adrian Laffitte, who got to make the call.

"We're ready to go ... There it goes ... It's a go," an announcer said as the towers crashed on piles of sand designed to cushion the fall.

Over recent weeks, workers removed supporting beams and braces from the storied pad, where the Viking Landers began their journeys to Mars in 1975 and the twin Voyager spacecraft started their journeys to the outer planets.

The launch pad, used over the years to send up Lockheed Martin's Titan rockets, is being removed to make way for a new complex for Lockheed Martin's Atlas 5 rocket, which should first blast off in late 2001.

Lockheed Martin officials said it would have taken six months to dismantle the launch pad without explosives. By toppling it with explosives, they plan to cut four months off of the schedule.

	VIDEO
2 MB / 41 sec. / 240x180 QuickTime movie Please enable Javascript
3 ... 2 ... 1 ... Boom! Windows Media 28K 80K

Lockheed Martin's Tim Meehan said the blast went exactly as planned.

"It worked out perfectly," he said. "It was just beautiful, wasn't it?"

The pad was the site of 27 launches of robotic spacecraft -- mainly classified Pentagon satellites but also seven NASA missions.

Lockheed Martin sold T-shirts commemorating the pad 41 blast, as well raffle tickets for the privilege of being the person to push a symbolic button setting off the explosives. Proceeds are earmarked for needy families in Florida.