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FROM SWAMP
This year commemorates the 30th Anniversary of NASA’s John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC). It was October 25, 1961 when a public announcement was made that NASA had moved to acquire some 13,500 acres in southwest Mississippi as the site of a static test facility for large launch vehicles to be used
in the Apollo manned lunar landing program and beyond.
The residents of this pristine piney woods and cypress swamp forest along the historic East Pearl River were surprised to see the space people arrive and start work on the way station to the moon. Nearly three centuries earlier, the Choctaw Indians had a similar reaction when the first French explorers sailed up the river and claimed the land for King Louis XIV.
During these past 30 years, activities of this NASA center have included testing the giant Saturn V rocket boosters that propelled the first people from this planet on their journey to the moon to testing the powerful engines used in the nation’s Space Shuttle program. Engineers, scientists and technicians working here have also been part of numerous national and international programs which have contributed to the center’s reputation as a crossroads of science.
The story of the 20th Century pioneers and their neighbors in south Mississippi is now being documented and recorded by the SSC History Office. These historical accounts will be laid up in the archives of America for future generations to study and acknowledge as part of mankind’s history on the planet Earth.
TO SPACE