>>3053366This never happened.
>>3053353History lesson.
The long feeder road just to the left of all of the pads is called ICBM Road. Back in the Space Race days, the Gemini and Apollo astronauts all had free big-block Corvettes from Jim Rathmann Chevrolet, with their names painted on the doors. Before launch, on their way to the pad, they would drag race them down that road. That road is approximately 4 miles long and two lanes. It's a wonder more astronauts weren't killed on ICBM Road than on the pad.
All of those pads are inactive today, but a couple of them still retain functioning blockhouses that are used in case of emergency, one was converted to a museum.
The buildings in the background were assembly buildings for the Titan program, the predecessor for Apollo, which eventually put man in space in the early 60s. Titan and Titan II were the missiles developed for ICBM use but were not rated for human spaceflight. There was a huge rift between the Air Force and NASA over man-rating the Titan II and the Air Force decided to do it under the guise of getting to the Moon, when in reality they were doing ICBM tests much like what North Korea does now. They were incredibly dangerous because they relied on hypergolic reactions to sustain power. Because of their readiness design as an ICBM they were kept fueled constantly on the pad so as to be able to retaliate on 10 minutes notice in the event of a Soviet missile strike.
The large red tower in the background is Complex 36, where the first Apollo capsule burned up killing all 3 astronauts on the pad. Apollo I would be one of the last Air Force man-rated launches before the Space Program was shifted to NASA for the Moon launches. There is a tour at KSC called the "Then and Now" bus tour that takes you to all of these places for like 60 dollars, and they also go to Complex 5 where Alan Shepard launched into space becoming the first American to do so.
