I should be grateful, I know.
I should be grateful that NASA’s recent moon rocket launch was even televised this past Thursday. It had two things going against it: The launch was unmanned, and it was slow by space shuttle standards. That any news organization would give it the time of day is encouraging. And incredible. But the coverage wasn’t without its frustrations.
The rocket, an Atlas—the descendant of the same rocket which carried John Glenn and the latter original Mercury astronauts—carried with it a Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Spacecraft. These will provide fodder for intense information about the Moon, and will help NASA select a landing site for future lunar missions.
But here’s the frustrating part.
When I worked in public education at Kennedy Space Center, I made a great show of holding up a map of the Space Coast, pointing out the curving shoreline of Cape Canaveral; the vast, almost island-like landmass of Merritt Island on which KSC is situated; and the difference between the two. Although joined at their northernmost points and containing active launchpads, the two areas are distinct.
Cape Canaveral is NASA’s original home. It houses the historic Mercury and Gemini launchpads, and is still very much an active part of the space program. Unmanned rockets, private, military, and NASA alike, launch from here regularly.
Kennedy Space Center houses the space shuttle orbiters in all three phases of their life cycles—their launches, their landings, and their prep for upcoming missions. The Apollo missions to the Moon launched from these same pads, and the new Mars and Moon trips, some of which will be unmanned, will begin here as well.
Unfortunately, many journalists use the terms “Cape Canaveral” and “Kennedy Space Center” interchangeably. The typical error is to refer to the Shuttle launchpads as “the Cape.” (Astronauts and other NASA employees do this on occasion, but they’re allowed to. They’re astronauts.) Tuesday’s head-banging moment came when one anchor cheerfully announced that we were looking at a rocket at… the Kennedy Space Center. And then the on-screen chyron read: “Cape Canaveral.”
Oh… maybe I should just stick with being grateful.
