>>We'r exploring Florida space history right here at the Kennedy Space Center in Brevard County on Florida's east coast.

You'll likely recognize the iconic building behind me.

The VAB, also known as the Vehicle Assembly Building.

This 526ft tall structure was completed in 1966 as a place to assemble the Apollo Saturn V moon rocket.

The largest rocket of its kind at the time.

Beginning in 1981 and over the next three decades, the VAB is where America's space shuttles were attached to their external fuel tan and solid rocket boosters prior to rolling out to the launch pad.

The VAB was also renovated to service the Space Launch System, commonly referred to as the SLS, responsible for the Artemis moon landing program and crewed Orion capsules.

From the rooftop, the horizon showcase the landscape of space history.

But before we explore all there is to see now, let's take a step back in time and see how KSC came to be.

When it comes to Central Florida being named a hub for spaceflight.

It's really all about location, location, location.

With the proximity to the equator, large bodies of water that are ideal for rocket launches, and Cape Canaveral's relatively small population during the 1950s, this area of Florida became prime real estate for building the Space Coast.

>>When I was growing up, when you turned south on A1A, there was nothing but palmettos until you got to Cocoa Beach, which was a service station and a souvenir shop.

>>The population increase o Brevard County comes in phases, and in essence, when you have your first launch in 1950 to the beginning of Sputnik, you know, when Sputnik launches in 1957, you have this period in which you have people that are coming to Brevard County, but they're not coming here primarily to live her for a prolonged period of time.

>>I first moved to Florida in 1955.

I'd previously been coming down for two years and launching a rocket and going back to Huntsville or Redstone.

This Brevard County was very primitive.

All we had was mosquitoes and alligators.

Kennedy Space Center did not exist.

You know, that was not even in our dreams.

>>My parent moved down here in the late 50s when things were just starting, and I came down on spring break from college and I said, wow, this is really neat.

You could drive on the beach then locally.

I said if I ever graduate I'm going to come here live, get a job because they're launching rockets from that place up there.

Looks like that would be a good thing to do.

So the population was low, but it was growing faster than a rocket went into orbit.

>>Just about everybody you met were already engineers from, you know, all our closest friends on that street were people that worked out at the KSC or the Cape.

>>Most of our crew, it was their first job out of college.

You know, you couldn't go out and hire a rocket guy with ten, 15 years experience.

>>It was an intense job.

Whether you were the technician with the wrench in his hand, or whether you were the inspector that was making sure that every step in every procedure was accomplished the way it was designed to be accomplished.

Whatever your job was, it was intense.

I wouldn't trade it for the world, by the way.

>>The atmosphere was infectious and the job was amazing.

They threw me in the briar patch right from day one.

Go down and run this test.

Run that test, you know, and you had to rely on the technicians and the inspectors the guys that have been working this hardware for the last five years.

They took engineers under their wing and basically taught them the trade.

And I really respected those guys, and I owe a lot to them even today, and I'm still friends with some of them.

We're all getting kind of up in years, but there's some great guys from those days.