NASA and the Space Program Change Florida

Video

• Apollo and Gemini
  This film shows actual space footage, Cape Kennedy footage, and spacecraft construction footage.
• Menu for an Astronaut
  The film describes NASA diet requirements, showing some food preparation for astronauts in "space food kitchens."
• Senator George Smathers Reports: Senator Stuart Symington
  Senator Stuart Symington, former director of the Strategic Air Command, addresses a Florida audience and asserts that the United States is falling behind the Russians. He says that more military development is needed, especially in the wake of Sputnik.
• President Kennedy on the Foreign Burden
  President John F. Kennedy speaks about the Space Program and the positive impact it will have on Florida's educational institutions, technological industries and economy.
  

Additional Resources at Other Institutions

• NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration
  News, mission reports and resources for students and teachers
  • NASA's History Office
    The NASA History Program was first established in 1959 (a year after NASA itself was formed) and has continued to document and preserve the agency's remarkable history.
  • Technology Transfer Program
    This website presents examples of NASA spin-off technologies that save lives, create jobs and preserve resources.
    
• Teaching with Historic Places Lesson Plans, National Park Service
  • America's Space Program: Exploring a New Frontier
    This lesson is based on National Register of Historic Places registration files for Cape Canaveral Air Force Station (with photographs) in Florida, and for properties located at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, and the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Texas.

Selected Bibliography

• Catchpole, John. Project Mercury: NASA’s First Manned Space Programme. New York: Springer, 2001.
• Faherty, William Barnaby. Florida's Space Coast: The Impact of NASA on the Sunshine State. Foreword by Gary R. Mormino and Raymond Arsenault. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2002.
• Kranz, Gene. Failure is Not an Option: Mission Control From Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000.
• Lipartito, Kenneth, and Orville R. Butler. A History of the Kennedy Space Center. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2007.
• Logsdon, John M. Legislative Origins of the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958: Proceedings of an Oral History Workshop Conducted April 3, 1992. Washington, DC.: NASA History Office, 1998. Available at www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/40thann/legorgns.pdf.
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Kennedy Space Center: Kennedy’s Rich History. www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/about/history/index.html

Resources at the State Library and Archives of Florida

Florida Electronic Library
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Ask A Librarian
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