Why NASA is Tearing Down Protected Structures
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- Опубликовано: 6 сен 2023
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Cape Canaveral, Florida is the historic heart of space exploration. Once a beacon for humanity's space race, this iconic location has witnessed unprecedented heights during the Apollo era followed by decay and obsolescence. While vestiges of historic launch pads and control centers stand as silent witnesses to past glories, a new wave of commercial space ventures breathes life into the landscape. Sandwiched between its technological past and the pristine Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge, Cape Canaveral is poignant collision of technological advancement and the challenges of time passing. This video examines NASA's policies for preserving historic structures and their practice of "abandon in place", set against the backdrop of a place where nature and technology intertwine.
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Video co-produced and edited by Evan Montgomery.
Stock video and imagery provided by Getty Images, Storyblocks, and Shutterstock.
Music provided by Epidemic Sound
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_About the Channel_
Architecture with Stewart is a RUclips journey exploring architecture’s deep and enduring stories in all their bewildering glory. Weekly videos and occasional live events breakdown a wide range of topics related to the built environment in order to increase their general understanding and advocate their importance in shaping the world we inhabit.
_About Me_
Stewart Hicks is an architectural design educator that leads studios and lecture courses as an Associate Professor in the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also serves as an Associate Dean in the College of Architecture, Design, and the Arts and is the co-founder of the practice Design With Company. His work has earned awards such as the Architecture Record Design Vanguard Award or the Young Architect’s Forum Award and has been featured in exhibitions such as the Chicago Architecture Biennial and Design Miami, as well as at the V&A Museum and Tate Modern in London. His writings can be found in the co-authored book Misguided Tactics for Propriety Calibration, published with the Graham Foundation, as well as essays in MONU magazine, the AIA Journal Manifest, Log, bracket, and the guest-edited issue of MAS Context on the topic of character architecture.
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University of Illinois at Chicago School of Architecture: arch.uic.edu/
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Honestly this is one of the rare cases where I would defend this. NASA can’t afford to maintain or update most of its old sites, and because spaceflight safety demands modern technology, they NEED to replace the old with the new.
That's what I'm thinking. A smartphone from Walmart has more processing power than all of NASA's computers back in the 60s. There is a hard limit of how much you can update infrastructure like this
Really the administration building demands the most modern building construction methods? Choosing to neglect building maintenance so you can then use that as an excuse to tear down the old and build brand new is not good stewardship.
@@x--. How do you know that? That was the presenter's opinion.
@@ASmithee67That's not the whole point of the video? Presenting evidence that they aren't maintaining buildings and choosing to build new? That seemed to be the thesis.
And it matches my experience and knowledge with other government entities.
I agree. Long range planning is needed. But is Canaveral going to be our only spaceport? What other sites should be considered? Boca Chica? Elsewhere?
I don’t know. We could spend the money on preserving the relics from the past or we spend it on advancing forward. Because Nasa’s budget is always the subject of ridicule and debate, you really can’t blame them for not saving everything. I would rather we take a lot of pictures and videos and archive the engineering drawings and preserve the knowledge and living history rather than try and keep the physical structures.
This is just a prime example of different government or quasi government agencies that are seldomly fully funded to keep up with innovation and preservation. Because of this you have a one or the other mentality.
@@austinlawler3739 it’s more like a “some not all” mentality.
Keeping the actual relics and and being able to see them in person is much more inspiring than just seeing a few pictures. We need to keep a balance of past, present, and future.
@@urgo224 , there are compromises. Like keeping and restoring the mercury control room but rebuilding it in a modern building that is purpose built to be a museum and easier to maintain.
I agree. NASA's mission is not to preserve the past - it is to foster current application of space. I think it's wrong to criticize NASA for not preserving things - if the public wants these things preserved, they should be turned over to another agency with that mission, or at least have a dedicated funding line for a historical preservation office within NASA, so they don't compete in the NASA budget but are funded by Congress.
"Erect and Neglect" was my high school yearbook quote
🤨
🧐
@@williamsullivan3967”worn out”
Ironically enough, that's my love life lately....
Reminds me of my ex wife
The historical importance of most of these sites comes from the activities and events which took place there, not from their architectural significance. It has to be difficult to balance the value of historical preservation with that of advancing NASA's primary mission, which must inherently be forward-looking to remain relevant.
I worked at Canaveral AFS in the early 2000s in the old Satellite Assembly Building (SAB), and learned back then that the "abandon in place" philosophy went back to the early days. When a new type of rocket was developed, the launch pad from the previous generation would typically not work for the new ones, and it was much less expensive to walk away from the old pad and move up the street and build a new one. Imagine having to rip up the concrete used to build a launch pad and put it back together in the same place. They were extremely fortified and problematic to remove at the foundation level.
Thus, you get Launch Complexes 1 through 40. Each pad has its own cool history. For example, Alan Shepard launched from pad 5. There was an outdoor static display of many historic test aircraft, missiles, and rockets surrounding it when I worked there. The Apollo 1 fire happened on pad 34. The Gemini rockets launched from 14. Canaveral Space Force Station is a fascinating place - a living museum - that pretty much no one gets to visit, for security reasons (outside the tour bus stops at a couple of key locations).
excellent post, and spot on. Cheers!
Unfortunately, I can't say I blame them post war buildings tend to have a lot of problems with them. Especially given many of these buildings were built quickly in order to get to space, not a lot of thought was put into making them last a long time. This is a problem that we have here too in the city I'm from, there are many great wonderful historical sites, but when they were built the people never intended them to last, they had a need and it met that need, the issue is over time the buildings just age. If you want something to last forever, you have to build it like you want it to last forever. This was something a lot of 1950-1980 buildings just didn't do. They were built cheap and to get the job done. Combine that with years of neglect, asbestos, lead pipes and paint, lack of modern fire code requirements, air conditioning, and the buildings not matching the needs that they once did and... I can't say I blame them. It is sad, but you do have to think, if we never launch a space shuttle again, do we need the launchpad, or could it be repurposed for newer rockets. It's a hard call, definitely can't save everything. Always a challenge. What to keep what to let go?
Well said! Totally agree
agreed
I agree with you, @Tindog. Concrete and steel were used ubiquitously at Kennedy Space Center, and the last time i looked, neither material was very resistant to tropical weather. I love visiting Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and the Kennedy National Seashore; from the southern access roads you can see the main launch pads (last time, we saw the Artemis 1 launch vehicle out for testing), and from the beach you can see the bungalows where Apollo astronauts would quarantine before launch. Even if the launch facilities are dismantled, the geometric ground structures and the flame diversion structures could be preserved at a reasonable cost, along with the Vehicle Assembly Building and ancillary buildings. BTW, there's a custom-built hanger nearby which houses one of the remaining Saturn V rockets.... amazing!
Along with asbestos, lead paint, what about poor or no handicap access, hell I been in military government buildings where the bathrooms were only accessible from the landings in the staircases to cut down on cost, depending on what floor you were on, you walked into the staircase and either went down or up depending on your sex (back when they knew what that was).
Would be nice to have laser scans and eventually turn it into a vr world that ppl from all over the world could look at as if it was still standing
Maybe for historically significant structures that are unfeasible to be refurbished or repurposed, take high resolution photographs and LIDAR scans of the building, inside and out, before demolition, to facilitate a digital recreation (perhaps even two recreations: one raw, one edited to showcase what it would have looked like in its prime).
Adding to this, if the structure had different appearances in different eras, model those differences and have them as options for virtual tours. Even add ash trays with lit cigarettes. There’s different graphics engines that would allow anyone to take a walk through Mission Control during the Apollo program and they wouldn’t have to leave home.
For the real equipment and whatnot, move them to places easily accessible to the public and set them up for display.
This is a great preservation option and would be apart of a long-term strategic vision for managing their facilities -- which seems to not exist?
AND digitize and make available plans/schematics for the buildings online.
So I know I'm late to the party here but I can speak on this. NASA does in fact do LiDAR scans before they demo any structure. I know this because it's actually part of my job. The latest building we scanned at JSC was Building 37. The old Lunar Receiving Laboratory, which is slated to be demolished later this year.
@morganbuhborgan730 why do you have SLS
10:26 The buildings shown here were part of the NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. They sat vacant for years, but were recently remodelled. The building on the far left is now The Orbit Hotel and the building in the foreground is now The Centaur luxury apartment complex. I'm glad to see they were preserved rather than being demolished. They're also in a good location since NASA is right next to the Cleveland Hopkins Airport.
From what you say, the buildings were renovated into new uses, new uses that pay for themselves going forward. That is different from the presenter of this video who is advocating restoring the buildings so they can be museum displays, and is not concerned with the costs of restoration and or the future costs of maintaining the museum buildings.
@@ASmithee67 I had hoped to inform the viewers of a particular location shown in the video, that they may not have otherwise learned about. I’m uniquely qualified to offer such information since I live only a few miles from those buildings. Your comment comes across as very dismissive of my statement. Even if what I wrote may not have suited your expected framework, I know that others benefited from it due to the number of likes.
@@Josh-yr7gdout here at the Cape and KSC, they will never be reverted to civilian use. It’s a working base within a wildlife refuge. I too saw several snippets that were not out here. The other factor besides asbestos and lead, is, we are on the ocean. Everything and I mean everything corrodes. This guy woh made this is extremely off base.
@Josh-yr7gd he's saying those buildings can make more money than static museums
Generally speaking: Cape Canaveral refers to the US Space Force facility, though ot also referes to the geographical feature on which both Cape Navaveral Air Force/Space Force Station and Kennedy Space Center reside. KSC was built by NASA as separate but adjoining facility. Pads 39A and B have always been NASA owned, never part of US military facility. And important distinction: Range Safety (the guy who presses the big red button to cause a rocket to self detonate if it veers off course) is separate for Cape Canaveral and KSC). (and things get muddled with SpaceX having permission to run their own because the military takes way too long between launches to switch the software profile from one launch to the next and SpaceX couldn't wait). I post this because you mentioned pads 39a and b were at Cape Canaveral. They are on the cape, but not part of Cape Canaveral Space Force station.
I was about to say much the same thing. Everything on the Cape proper is DoD property and their responsibility/decision.
Then again Merritt Island doesn’t have the same… pazaz if you will, as Cape Canaveral.
Classic SpaceX, being too impatient for bureaucracy...
Technically KSC is on Merritt Island. Separated by the Banana River.
@@metropod the names are used interchangeably by the press too. Probably because the geographical location is that name as well.
saving buildings that are inefficient and poisonous just because they were slapped together quickly to facilitate a project that was completed 50 years ago is silly. None of them are great architecture, they're utilitarian shoe boxes. Knock them over, use the chunks for artificial reefs, replace (only if needed) with more efficient and robust ones.
I went in 2016 for work and wandered around for a day because I had clearance. It blew me away how many launch complexes were abandoned. Made me sad but I do understand moving away from the old to build new
Yes, a lot were built as temporary in nature, but this reminds me of the office complex that used to exist in Washington D.C. along the Reflecting Pool. Where Constitution Gardens and the Vietnam Memorial now stand was once a sprawling "temporary" office building of low quality hastily built to support the WWII buildup...but it stood in serious disrepair until about 1970 when President Nixon forced the issue and prioritized its demolition.
Very thoughtful video Stewart. I worked at JPL in the 80s. It was pretty exciting until the morning of Jan 28, 1986 when Challenger blew up. Unsurprisingly things seemed to grind to halt after that.
My grandad worked at JSC, and up until that point, he'd taken my grandma, my dad, and my uncle to watch the launches whenever he had the chance. Luckily, they weren't at that one, but afterwards he never took them to a launch again.
@@rikidog2682 I was sitting in my office at JPL, and one of the technicians ran in and told me the shuttle "exploded". I thought what the heck are you talking about, the shuttle can't explode (optimism on my part). I ran across the street to the library which had a video from the cape and all I saw was the two diverging plumes from the solid boosters veering off into the sky.
@@aes53 Challenger did not explode. It was torn apart by aerodynamic forces, caused by the failure of the External Tank, rupturing due to the SRB plume burning through the External Tank structure from the failure of o-rings at the aft end of the SRB. There is an excellent video produced by NASA on RUclips of the timeline and events that led to the destruction of the External Tank and Challenger.
@@mistermac56 I’m the last person you should be lecturing to on this subject. I was actually working at JPL when it happened.
Like most of the staff scientists we watch the hearings and saw Feynman perform the ice water experiment on the solid rocket o-ring materials and we all knew what had happened. Unlike you I don’t need a RUclips video to explain it because, well, I was there.
@aes53...Sure you were....
That reply is straight from the incident repirt and is exactly what occurred.
And when presented it, you immediately get defensive and start listing your credentials, name dropping famous scientists, etc
Sure sounds like a trolling to me...
P.S. How were you "there" for the Challenger incident when it launches from Florida and JPL'S offices are in California?
You were as "there" as the rest of us who were watching on our TVs...
Based on a lot of the comments I'm reading, I wonder if you could talk more about the benefits/importance of history and specifically preserving actual objects and places vs just pictures and plans. I know I never understood modern art as a kid. I saw it in textbook pictures and magazines and on TV, and it didn't do anything for me. Then i went to a museum and had the experience of feeling like i could fall into the colors of a painting. I went through the whole gift shop trying to find something that captured that feeling, but the colors on the postcards just physically couldnt be bright enough. Only the real thing made sense.
All constructions related to an important event should be preversed from destructions.
@@pierren___ All?
@@RBzee112 yes. Buildings constructed before 1945 (in Europe) should be forbidden to destruct
First and foremost, preservation of cultural identity…think about it. Why are Eastern European countries and Italy so rich in culture? Because they wouldn’t dare to lay a finger on their historical structures with the intention to tear it down for modern development, these buildings represents everything about who they are as fellow countrymen of this/that country…it’s a part of who they are, they could point to it, stand behind it and say: “This is my history and I’m proud to be a part of it.”
Now let’s compare that to the United States…uhm, oh this? That’s a Walmart parking lot and some skyscraper of unknown origins, don’t even know who owns it or why it was built. Do you think that represents America culturally or does it represent the money developers line their pockets with in the name of “civic development”?
Yah, except you'd have felt the same thing if we'd just created a replica from plans and then lied and told you it was the original.
To me that says that it's not really worth preserving the original. Clever museum design can fail to prominently mention everything is a reproduction (but not lie) and you get all the benefits of both. And I dunno if future generations will see digital content as less real the way we do if they grow up with VR.
Besides, I'm not sure how much we should value the authentic feeling in the first place. It's just a weird bias we have leftover where we think of objects as if they had souls or as if they somehow absorb the essence of what happened with them. It's a neat premise for a tv show like warehouse 13 but should we actually buy into the pretense that the molecules are changed by the events around them?
I was wary when NASA handed over Pad 39A to SpaceX, but have to say, they've been really good stewards of the site. 39A kept the bones of the historic launch structure, but looks sleek and modern-fit for the 21st century, and most importantly, it's continuing its legacy as a hub of American space flight.
i wouldnt bet on that treatment of their launch sites being a trend. if its more profitable to ruin something, they will (and they have). theyre a corporation.
@@arcanealchemist3190 Most of the architecture on this channel was built by corporations, for corporations
@@shsd4130so? That doesn't take away from the point. How many priceless bits of ecology or architecture have been lost because the corporation owning the land wanted to put up a generic strip mall or luxury apartments.
@shsd4130 corporations don't have any obligation to preserve anything. their purpose is to bring profit to their shareholders. they are morally and philosophically opposed to doing anything else, and in the USA, legally forbidden from such actions as well.
I dont know what world you live in where you think "corporations pay for stuff." is enough to excuse the myriad of negative outcomes caused by their dogged pursuit of profit. has the BP oil spill already lost its tragedy in your mind? the Boeing 747 max crashes? I could list times profit was put over human lives all day. times it destroyed history and ecology, for the rest of our natural lives.
grow up and take a look at the world around you instead of your bank account and those designer shoes you want. all the profit you can make turns to nothing if the world around you is made worthless.
I was saddened to see the Starship tower constructed on 39a in such a seemingly haphazard fashion. It should have its own complex of tanks, roads, and support facilities, maybe between 39a and 39b.
*Worth noting:* NASA gets less than half of a percent of the federal budget.
Literal neo-Nazis (yes, with Nazi insignia and ideology) in Ukraine need $200 billion, so everything else can wait.
yes, if we spent the same amount of money on NASA as we have on oil and gas subsidies, we could have been on mars twice over already.
Yes, it's still $17 Billion
Ukraine gets 5 times that and accomplishes nothing for us
You can tell people who're serious about the space program and those who aren't when they first say that NASA get's less than 1 percent of the federal budget, then turn around to complain that billionaires like musk have built rockets & argue that the money should be taken away to "feed the needy".
First Comment is not showing. but KSC and Cape Canaveral are separate. NASA is the Kennedy Side and the Space Force (DoD) is the Cape side. NASA did have missions and infrastructure on the Cape but it wasn't theirs. They are distinctly different. There is a new $1.5B Space Port of The Future program that is in effect to revitalize the Cape to be able to accommodate new commercial launch customers and new DoD missions.
Que massa, não sabia que as viagens espaciais deixavam todas essas estruturas. Muito bom vídeo!
I had a questionement lately regarding the lifespan of buildings in cities. What is the expected lifespan of a skyscraper ? Is it possible to demolish a 30 stories high building right in the city center ? I also had en internal conversation about what we consider beatiful then, now, and in the future. For exemple, nowadays with think the buildings of the 70's are ugly, but maybe 30 years from now we will love them. Also, there might be something to say about the North-american mentality that a house is a consumer product made to last 50 years.
It's possible to demolish such skyscrapers and much taller have been taken down. Examples of demolition in the city center include the Singer Building, 270 Park Avenue, and the Morrison Hotel.
There seems to be a period in a building's life span where it's too old to fit with the times but too young to be of historic concern. That's when they're most at risk of being lost.
Modern skyscrapers are capable of lasting for 1000s of years with proper maintenance. You just slowly replace each piece of it over time. The issue is whether or not the owner of the land it sits on wants to use it for something else or drastically change the design.
Brutlaist trash in general and most other modern skyscraper aarchitecture will never be beuatiful, as it is anti-human. It was shaped by the soul-less for the enervation of those yet with souls.
My goodness, can we get over the emotional, tear jerking arguments! Its historical! Take a picture!
the new "HQ" at the Cape (KSC actually) is half the size but it is also only half built. The large slab like building segment on the "end" will be the juncture point for a mirror image second wing. Done in two phases so no firm date for completion.
There are A LOT of new buildings. From SpaceX, Blue Origin, and other companies, they are building new structures all over the place when I was there. Its in a wilderness sanctuary so it makes sense to tear down old buildings and build on the same footprint.
Realistically its not nasa's purpose to preserve the past. If people want these buildings to live on they need to separately pay for that.
When I saw the thumbnail, I said, "Now THAT's interesting," and put aside my plans to watch.
The monuments of Ancient Rome we treasure are not the first temples, but the last.
The final chapter of human exploration has not been imagined much less written.
The remaining Roman ruins are solid concrete, not worth being recycled. Anything useful like marble or precious stone were removed long ago.
or maybe humanity will never make it back to the moon. civilizations fall, ancient technologies are lost, for all sorts of reasons.
Realistically the US government might need a new agency, similar to the Forestry and National Parks Service specifically for building of historical significance. This could allow for a separation of budget, preventing these subcomponents of NASA siphoning from the upkeep and restoration budgets. The people at NASA are always going to prioritize their future goals over memorializing past triumphs, and its hard to fault an agency built around scientific exploration for those priorities
Memorialize the past with photos. Live in the present with development.
I got to see some of these structures with my grandparents when I was a kid.
I'll always remember the tour bus having to stop because alligators were literally crossing the road. It was so fascinating and exciting to be seeing a real gator and all the old launch pads and even the museums
A big part of why I got married was that my wife and I learned that we shared a philosophy of 'restoration over replacement'. Our first house together is one that we cleaned, repaired, and recovered from multiple years of vacancy, and we don't ever want to be responsible for the unnecessary construction of a brand new house. I wish more people in power held that same value.
It's not that simple. These buildings were built to get a job done with no regard for longevity it would cost a lot to renovate them add the lead pipes, asbestos and you have a ticking time bomb
a similar but maybe more consequential example of the incentive to neglect infrastructure(from a recent Ars Technica article) is the deep space network they use for space communications outside of Low Earth Orbit - its also increasingly overbooked and differing maintenance
Link?
Stewart, I appreciate your video. Thanks.
Fascinating topic.
Main reason why facilities lack maintenance is because most money from HQ is not designated for facilities. Result is many occupied buildings lack proper maintenance, unused buildings are ignored (no money to teardown or remodel). Now with tight budgets this means NASA overall has to cannibalize projects to fund others (originally what Artemis was not supposed to do). There are some structures being torndown which probably gets funding because they are in the way of an active program that has funding. For most it is like Soviet Russia where people have to do work-arounds, which in longterm is a third-world way of doing business. Regarding Artemis, I don't see how we can get to the moon if we have buildings lacking proper HVAC and plumbing.
The picture with the Sandhill Cranes got me... such a classic "Florida" photo. Love it!
This is where I’m from. Cool to see someone on YT covering this. I don’t watch cable news so I haven’t heard about this.
NASA’s land use and its impacts surely pails in comparison to that of the United States military related uses and activities. The first thing that comes to mind is all the nuclear fallout from bomb testing in southern Nevada in the 1950s and 1960s. The excess cancer deaths is appalling.
People often like to compare NASA to military spending, but both can be wastes of money, even if one is more of a waste of money than the other. NASA is more of an idea than anything else. It hasn't actually functionally advanced science or any knowledge in practical usable terms. For example, all that cost of putting rovers on mars, isn't actually changing what we already knew about mars from even just satellite images. It may seem like a great achievement, but it's like watching an olympic runner win....sure they "did it!", but all the energy they spent running around that track, was wasted running around the track. That's NASA in a nutshell. It boasts many achievements, but they're also empty in the sense of advancing humanity or gaining any knowledge that is inherently useful to humanity and its advancement. Its collected a lot of statistics and data, but that's all we've really gain, knowledge without any practical benefit. Once you look at NASA as a whole and think of how life would be different today without them, the answer is largely that only the history books would be written differently. We'd still have pretty much all the technology we do today.
@@peoplez129 NASA is a reflection of some of the positive impulses of human beings - a search for knowledge and exploration. Many many practical uses of technology have been a result of people’s curiosity, not because they were trying to solve a particular problem. It is a matter of proportion and a somewhat philosophical question: How much money should a society spend on scientific research not specifically geared to solving practical problems?
In contrast, military spending on the whole is a reflection of the negative impulses of human beings - war. Because human beings have not evolved to a point where war is not a constant threat, there is a practical need for military spending. Ironically, a lot of useful technology was developed due to WW2. How much money should a society spend preparing for war? Are there better ways of spending that money to prevent war from happening?
There are enough resources in the world to provide for everyone’s physical needs and fund things like NASA, although that may not be the situation in the future. The problem is that resources are not necessarily distributed where need. Humans also need “impractical” things like arts and sports to enrich and inspire them.
The most efficient thing would to have never been born, but the only people that want that have not yet found the balance and inspiration needed in their life. I would encourage them to keep exploring and learn as much as they can. Who knows what they might discover within themselves or the world around them.
By the way, you are likely reading this on an LED screen, a technology developed due to NASA.
@@barryrobbins7694 You missed the point. You can't use some other bad spending item to justify another bad spending item. You can say NASA is less of a waste, but that doesn't make it not a waste. As you admit, NASA doesn't solve practical problems. It doesn't solve any at all actually. It at best creates problems to be solved, the solution of which, generally leads to no practical purpose, and not really changing anything practical in the world.
But it can all be boiled down to one simple fact: If NASA never existed, not much would be different today. Only the history books would be different. And NASA is quite expensive when you look at it in its total running cost over time. A lot of people think numbers like 40 billion....but it's way more than that. We're talking more than a trillion dollars spent on NASA. And that's why they need to keep up the hype and charade, because they know they've not done anything near enough to justify those kinds of expenditures, which is why they dangle things like mars colonies, despite knowing that humans can never actually colonize mars, for many reasons, but the simplest one of all: lower gravity. It will be the single greatest limiting factor to keep any long term colonies from being sustainable. But they do it because it peaks interest and brings in more funding.
Now imagine that money was spent on a 1 trillion dollar solar farm instead. On balance, our lives would be better with that than anything NASA ever did.
@@peoplez129 Whatever monies a government has, it needs to determine were to allocate it. You are saying that NASA is a bad allocation of money, that it is better spent elsewhere to solve practical problems. I get that.
If the bigger picture is to solve problems that require money, there is a lot more money wasted in the military than by NASA. If you want to save the most money for practical problems it is better to focus on military spending. That was my point.
I think NASA should exist for the reasons I previously wrote, but I do think you have made a good point on the size of the budget.
We can have NASA and solve problems with housing, healthcare, transportation, etc. The reasons we don’t has more to do with political and ideological reasons. Abolishing NASA won’t change that, and military spending increases for the same reasons.
The military actually keeps incredibly good care of it’s lands. There is a world renowned ecology center run by the military to keep its lands incredibly healthy.
very interesting
Thank you for explaining all this 👍I really appreciate it 👍
Really interesting
I worked at CX11 in the late 80s early 90s it was AIP but we still used almost all the structures for downrange sub cable ops (storage of equipment). it was a very cool place to work out of.
Excellent video, thank you.
NASA has followed this path since it's very inception on the Space Coast. Entire historical communities and agricultural areas were claimed under eminent domain to create the Kennedy Space Center and the USAF base in the name of progress. Everyone had to vacate, some of the wooden homes were moved, and others just left to the elements. There's about 8 family cemeteries on KSC/US Fish and Wildlife/Cape Canaveral Air(Space) Force property.
It's crazy that in the first second of a random RUclips video I click on I see a beautiful shot of my work location, good ol' complex 37B
7:15 hey I recognized that building! It looks like 4200 MSFC in Huntsville, it was just torn down a couple years ago.
Thank you and have a great week.
Kind of depressing to see all these demolitions. My dad worked in the space program (Space Shuttle) and it’s like seeing him…well. Ya know. Sad.
Pity.
We can't hold onto everything, and how much of a historical significance do old office building really have. I often ask my wife, does that object really provide joy to your life. if you have an emotional attachment to something that you don't have room for, take a picture of it and get rid of it.
Unfortunately buildings have too big an environmental impact to just toss them away like people do with household belongings. Reuse is much more sustainable.
@@aayotechnology That's only true if the building was designed with such a lifespan in mind. Constantly renovating a structure that wasn't designed to survive long term can actually have a much greater environmental impact and materials cost over the long term rather than replacing it with a more sustainable modern structure designed not to degrade at such an accelerated rate.
I'm not sure I follow. As space exploration takes new turns and embraces newer technology, the older items that are no longer usable or updateable are replaced. There is only a certain amont of physical space on the installations property to consider. Is your "viable" alternative to keep rusting hulks of metal, rusting hulks of metal (even if they are no longer used) becauuse of some whistful emotional attachment to them?
This is the least attractive aspect of architectural culture: creation of monuments and an unsated hunger to maintain them out of temporal context. We have to learn, sometimes, to let the past die.
Please do more about space flight and architecture!
Im glad the O&C is still there for now, because that’s where the astronauts stayed and departed for shuttle launches. But I’m not sure that is enough for it to be historic. That said, walking around the launch pad where Grissom and his crew mates died was very impactful to me in the 90s.
Well I am not in favor of spending Billions of dollars to make a grave site for three heroes. That is too much.
You should know that I believe that Gus Grissom was a HERO and one of the best pilots and Astronauts that this country ever produced.
@@ninersix2790 Sounds like we’re in agreement, then. If we have billions to spend, it should be taking us forward.
Despite the technological advancements, in my honest opinion, cape Canaveral is and will remain to be the most beautiful installation of human engineering, science, etc., just to look at the overall layout of the base was stunning. At least in my mind... I will always love the scene in MIB 3 at Cape Canaveral (obviously just on a set, a recreation) but it always made me wonder what the simpler life was like... Now everything is simple because of the advantages that newer technology gives. Idk just a thought
i understand if they need to demo the old stuff. i am just glad i got to see it in person this year before it is all gone.
I'll be visiting the Kennedy Space Centre (from England) in January 2024. As a 72 year old I'm definitely a child of the Space Age age. While I understand the need for NASA to "cut its cloth" effectively, it's a shame to see all those facilities, which I remember from my youth, rotting away or being demolished.
I was able to tour Cape Canaveral back in December. It’s sad to see how ran down a lot of the launch complexes are. LC 34, a pad where three astronauts lost their lives, is nothing but a wasteland now. The Challenger is buried away in old missile silos at LC 31, almost like they are trying to hide what happened. It’s sad to see it in such disarray.
Could you do a video on the Miami building collapse in Florida? Perhaps talk about when buildings should be inspected, retrofitted, or demolished. Or seaside building decay.
Reaching...
I'm fascinated by the tug between progress (at the cost of preservation) v. preservation (at the cost of progress). They're both stacked with great arguments on both sides. Plus I love the aesthetics of abandoned industrial buildings, and I'm far from alone - but what value should this indulgence have in real decision-making? Some days I think "demolish" and some days I think "conserve".
I wonder if, had this video come out on a different day, it would have treated the "markers of our past" with less reverence and argued for an uncluttered rush to the future, or whether this one, as is, captures Stewart's settled and unchanging opinion.
Dude, you are a Stud!..I could listen to you talk about almost any subject
This isn’t destroying history. It’s clearing the way to make more.
Having grown up watching Gemini and Apollo on tv, it was really special to be able to go and stand in the MCC. The new exhibit is nice, but it not the same as stand where history happened.
The habitat isnt "encroaching." All that NASA infrastructure what built on top of it.
It reminds me of people lamenting the loss of the Singer building while ignoring the four residential buildings that were demolished to build Singer's monument to himself.
You have to draw a line somewhere and NASA has correctly drawn thiers to favor scientific output.
Are you playing starfield too? This is very on point.
After listening a bit to the background music early on in this video, it reminds me of Philip Glass's soundtrack of Koyannisqatsi, which in some ways, seems very fitting, considering the theme of that movie.
Fun Fact, if you drive 20 miles south to Patrick Space Force Base on A1A, one third of the enormous original 'I Dream of Jeannie' building still stands to this day. That ironically oldest part is still occupied but is due to be torn down in a year or two.
what building is that being demolished at 7:15 ? that doesn't look like FL (small mountains in the background?)
Gonna make me cry over here
i have a tendency to not care about the preservation of buildings that are not physically appealing or structurally impressive. i think most modern buildings are built in a way that isn't memorable and isn't sustainable so i don't really care unless it's something i personally have a vested interest in that makes me biased.
Its interesting to see Roscosmos' approach to old structures. Many of the ground infrastructure at from the N1 moon rocket program and later the Buran Energeia program still sits at Baikonur the way it looked all the way back in '86. While the structures are subject to dilapidation (as seen with the N1 assembly building at Site 112s roof collapsing in 2002), they are still holding up to this very day.
I think climate has a lot to do with that. Baikonur is in a desert region, right? In Florida, you have humidity and salt from the ocean, both of which are very corrosive with metal.
Its in the middle of a desert inside a vast unoccupied area! Cape Canaveral is a relatively small area with new launch sites needed all the time!
To look up is to look forward 😊
I wish people were able to go see all the facilities like this that are just sitting out in the desert on WSMR. Many of them have bin torn down in the last two decades but there are a lot of early space structures still sitting out there untouched in half a century.
When Jackie Kennedy chose the Kennedy Center of Performing Arts as her husband’s memorial in DC she stated that he would have wanted a Living Memorial in his honor rather than a monument. We must take the same approach with the Kennedy Space Center. Tear down the old, build the new, whats important is the ground it sits upon and the ongoing purpose of its mission. Let That be the Living Monument to our Space Program.
Can anyone tell me where the location is that's shown from the air at 10:56?
I think moving forward, especially considering resource shortages, humanity as a whole is going to put more focus into renovation and renewal of existing structures. That being said there is going to have to be some major recalculation when it comes to building code.
White Sands Missile Range is similar to Cape Canaveral in many respects, except it seems like WSMR has taken the approach of adapting old structures where practical and leaving them to rot when not. It honestly doesn't make too much difference though, because the needs are so much different from a V2 rocket to modern missiles that none of the old equipment is practical to reuse and the buildings are rearranged inside every couple of decades or so for whatever new program moves in.
5:21 How is it that this frame of this clip is flipped?
Those structures are located right on the Atlantic coast of Florida, that is a very high salt air concentrated area, those structures being torn down have to come down, they're no good anymore and they're cost prohibited to maintain.
Yes because NASA will not maintain them.. It like letting the old tree die from neglect so you do not cut down an old growth trees.
As a kid I watched these earliest fights on TV in our grade school in S Fla
NASA obviously had quite the facilities budget from its founding in 1958 until the termination of the Apollo program in 1975; so that it has to deal with aging, outdated facilities from that era shouldn't be a surprise. While there might be a certain nostalgia in preserving some of the historic launch sites like Pads 39A&B, and continued upgrades of the VAB (as no suitable replacement appears to be in the offing and it still has a useful function), the long-term solution is to demolish structures that have outlived their usefulness, and adjust to the realities of a modern office and light industrial workplace in the mid-21st century.
The great thing that NASA did, or at least was done concurrent with building up the massive Space Center at Cape Canaveral, was to establish the Merritt Island Wildlife Refuge. WIth an obvious function to provide a needed buffer zone for launch activities (a rocket filled with TONS of "Red, Fuming Nitric Acid" might just require a bit of "swinging room") for the Space Center and nearby Patrick AFB, this provided an opportunity to preserve a large section of riparian coastal wetlands. This was thanks in no small part to the efforts of then-Sec Interior Stuart Udall, who served under all of JFK's and LBJ's terms, known as an prominent conservationist. Considering that even then, and continuing with a vengeance, the Florida Atlantic Coast has been heavily developed, almost all the way from the Florida Keys to Fernandina Beach, this provides a much-needed break in addition to the necessary "safety zone" for NASA and DoD activity.
I'd like to see a similar piece on the former Soviet (now Russian Federation) aerospace facilities and "secret cities", many of which are STILL in operation, and their current conditions, especially given now more than thirty years since the breakup of the USSR.
Normally I'd say the private historical societies could take these places over, just like they do with RR historical places. However in these cases i think the deciding factor HAS to be simply the rampant use of Asbestos that is the deciding factor, as mentioned. Simply too much liability for "hobbiest" societies to assume. 😢
I'm happy NASA is looking toward the future instead of engaging in nostalgia and sentimentality.
Well at least their launch control room has been restored, that was an important piece of their history to be saved from the Apollo era.
7:30 the pin map is missing a couple, Utah and Airzona
technology advances faster than the foresight of the infrastructure designed to support it. This is not surprising, nor is it a loss. Engineering and art are always intertwined yet they are not dependent on each other. It simply isnt feasible to preserve the home of every innovation, as it is rapidly exceeded by the next generation that inevitably has more expansive requirements. Nor is it reasonable to ask that innovation move to a new location with each subsequent generation of advancement. The best we can do to preserve these spaces is to recognize that preservation in this manner inherently hinders innovation and document, record, and distribute each iteration as best we can. Theater can be advanced in a structure that once held performances 100 years ago, but you cannot build a car of the future with the infrastructure that produced the model T. New, meaningful Art can be displayed in a structure thats held art for hundreds of years, but you cannot build a state of the art ship in a shipyard that existed as it did in the 1600s.
My mother's side of the family homesteaded on the cape and their descendants are still there today. We are still able to visit the graveyard without restriction though an escort is provided to pass through the base.
I remember thinking a number of years ago how a steam locomotive which enthralled me as a boy...probably had not a scrap of the same metal still in it today as when it was manufactured. So, ....we probably have what amounts to a replica of the original by now.
That raises an interesting question: If we want to maintain the memory of it, ...why not simply build a replica?
It'd cost one deuce of a lot less to maintain.
By the same token, I don't think it makes sense to keep maintaining buildings and facilities which aren't used any longer. Better to build full-size replicas of key facilities, such as control rooms. I should think full-size replicas even of launch facilities being placed in a new museum--in a different location--would make more sense.
We need to keep in mind too, these will be fairly time specific. I suspect that a control room or administrative office used early in Apollo...had a similar role for the space shuttle, yet the equipment in use had almost certainly changed. Probably several times.
We should not be so obsessed with preserving relics that we fail to live today.
The past has its place, but we cannot let nostalgia prevent progress. Just as teepees and swinging door saloons faded away, today's buildings too will one day be outdated. Rather than clinging to and funding the maintenance of outdated structures, we must look to the future. Let us honor history without making it holy ground. Our resources are better spent planning for what is to come rather than preserving what no longer serves us. The past teaches, but the future calls us forward.
Right!. What purpose is there in running forward to advance our future if we are only going to let our past hold us down? My only thought is all the wasted money that the government sponsored space program has accrued in the last few years. Look at SLS versus commercial space programs like Starship. Starship has been developed in less time than it has taken Boeing and NASA to fix Starliner. Starliner is an example of the problem - crappy contracts that let companies like Boeing take advantage of the U.S. taxpayer.
NASA and efficiency are antonyms and can not be used in the same sentance!
What you see as a problem is what senators call a feature. They all want a slice.
The old structures had asbestos, the remediation costs of keeping those habitable would be much higher. My aunt used to be a project engineer for asbestos removal projects, they are very costly.
i'm so glad the Apollo Moon Rocket Computer System has been retrieved & revived and many RUclips videos about it and even demonstrating it wit it's ring core matrix memory 😀!
it was the biggest milestone in computer technology, as it had the first transistor integrated circuit computerchips 😀!
with the F-14 FighterJets , the contract with the manufacturer even demanded that after decommission, the planes would be destroyed.😡
Although this is sad, I can agree that we need to move on. You can’t create without destruction.
This is so great Stewart! Great research but also comparisons with larger societal issues. You and Dami Lee are my favorite architecture RUclipsrs because you both always connect to the larger picture. This was a pleasure to watch, thank you.
Structures in Florida do not last that long due to weather, humidity, storms, and hurricanes. It's not just NASA but many Mid Century buildings have run their course and depending on the environment, some of these buildings are just done.
It's not uncommon for certain parts of Florida for people to buy an older house on a property, knock it down, and then rebuild a new house on the property. Sub tropical weather and salt water corrosion really do age structures much, much harsher than other environments.🤔
I agree, buildings are buildings. If they decay, build new ones that are, 1) more accessible; 2) more healthy;; 3) environementally friendly; 4) have more greenery inside and out. Renovating costs more in the long run.
Wow Stewart, this is a really great piece! Concisely tackling NASA history is no small feat. Thoughtful presentation and excellent thesis. Thank you for marrying two of my favorite topics, architecture and space exploration! Signed an architect working in the space industry.
Everything is recycled eventually, it's only a matter of when we decide to make it happen, or let it happen.
Like Le Corbusier or Mies van der Rohe grand workz - the ModernAge's relics & artifacts have not been easy to live with !🇨🇦
Seeing the shuttle mate/de-mate structure at :33 was sad knowing it will never lift a shuttle again...
I think some amount of the unease comes from a sort of invocation of Ozymandias. We hear Neil Armstrong's words, "One small step for man. One giant leap for mankind," echo from fifty-four years in the past only to juxtapose those words against the decay of the buildings that brought Armstrong to the moon in the first place. It feels like the potential of those famous words are left unfulfilled, the ruined remains of that bygone era telling us we'll never see the potential of those words come to fruition.
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