Apollo 1 Anniversary
This post shares photographs and stories from the early history of spaceflight at Cape Canaveral including the tragic Apollo 1 mission and astronaut John Glenn’s first orbital flight.
Category: Maritime
Launch Complex 14 Today
The post provides historical insight into the early space flights at Cape Canaveral, emphasizing their significance and risks.
Arrival
Here we have a pleasant carriage rental trip, exploring and photographing the Aran Islands.
Church Ruin on Inishmore
Join me on a journey through Inishmore, Galway Bay on a horse-drawn carriage. We’ll see a ruined church, horse pasture, and iron age fort, Dun Aengus, with reflections on the word ‘riven.’
Lighthouse Details
Dive into our captivating photo series for a closer look at Cape Canaveral’s lighthouse daymark—your visual gateway to a beacon of history and humanity’s reach for the stars.
Cape Canaveral Lighthouse
Step into a snapshot of history with the first of a series on early space flight at Cape Canaveral, where the lighthouse stands as a silent guardian over tales of sea and sky.
Rusty Box
a LARGE rusty box
From a November 2021 article by James Sparvero of ClickOrlando(dot com). “Recent storms may have pushed a big part of a ship onto a secluded Central Florida beach. The Canaveral National Seashore said the metal object washed ashore at boardwalk No. 7 of Playalinda Beach. It is about 8 feet tall and 20 feet long.
“Seashore’s resource manager Kristen Kneifl said it might be a ballast tank from a ship, which is a compartment on a floating structure that holds water to help stabilize the vessel. “
’That’s our best guess at this point,’’ Kneifl said.
As far as removing the giant box, the Seashore said it could be difficult. Meaning it will probably stay on the beach for a while until it gets figured out.
‘’Unlike maybe some boats or other things that wash up, where we can kind of chain saw it apart and get it over one of our boardwalks, it doesn’t look like it can be cut up,’’ Kneifl said. ‘’So, it’s going to have to be removed from the water, from the oceanside.”
Kneifl said, chances are, the strange object will be removed on a barge and transported elsewhere by sea.
Here is a photo for a sense of place.
Artistic macros of the rusty surface.
Cape Canaveral National Seashore, Titusville, Brevard County, Florida
Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved
Introduction to the Loughan an Lochan Ruins
Romance of Ruins
Here is a photograph from our day touring the Glens of Antrim. While making our way up the coast to Torr Head a group of stone walls resolved into ruins. A cluster of cottages on grassy slopes above the Irish sea above Loughan Bay. This is the townland of Loughan. Along the road are wonderful signs providing in handsome carved letters the place name in english and gaelic. Here a signed only provided a gaelic name: “Loughan an Lochan”…near enough to meaning “Loughan Bay” in English. The bay is a shallow scallop shaped indentation of the coast, a margin of narrow sand strand.
Ruins are spread across the slope. Immediately before the views are traces of a foundation above the grass. Beyond the top of a gable, an entire gable to the left. On the far ridge, just visible, is an entire structure with doorways, gables, walls.
Across the Irish Sea, 13 miles distant, is the Mull of Kintyre. In faint outline, rising above the horizon, find the highlands of Islay more than 30 miles. Both are tips of peninsulas jutting from Scotland.
Click pic for larger view in a new browser tab. If you are in WordPress Reader, open the post to use this feature.
The ruins lead to curiosity over who live here? What were their lives like? Why did they leave?
Want more? Click the link for my Ireland Gallery
Enter your email to receive notification of future postings. I will not sell or share your email address.
Copyright 2025 All Rights Reserved Michael Stephen Wills
Mercury 7 Pre-Launch Facilities
Hosting Astronaut ZZZZZZZ’s and much more
Here is the sixth in a series of photographs centered on the early history of space flight on Cape Canaveral mostly taken during a tour organized by the Cape Canaveral Lighthouse Foundation. “Google” the foundation for details of future tours. Here we explore pre-launch support for the Mercury program, including the first USA Orbital Launch of John Glenn from Launch Complexe 14 (LC 14).
Overview
Leaving LC 1 – 4 (see “Post WWII Launch Complexes”), our bus turned onto Central Control Road passing construction on Launch Complex 36 (LC36). In 2015 Blue Origin (Amazon money) leased LC36 where it planned to launch the “New Glenn” vehicle after 2020. I snapped the churned-up sand and construction equipment, not interesting at all IMHO.
Click Any Image for a larger viewe
The “New Glenn” was named in homage to John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth in 1962. We turned right onto to ICBM Road, headed generally north, following a string of launch complexes along the Altantic shore toward Launch Complex 14 (LC14). A dissapointment was not stopping to walk the Mercury 7 Memorial at the corner of ICBM Road and LC14. Our bus stopped briefly enough for the following snap. It is a memorial because John Glenn, the surviving member of Mercury 7, passed away December 8, 2016 at the age of 95.
I will cover at length the Mercury-Atlas vehicle that powered John Glenn into orbit February 20, 1962. The tie-in between ICBM road and this series of launch complexes is the early space missions were on re-purposed Intercontinental Ballistic Missles (thus, ICBM). “Atlas” is the name of the ICBM used for Colonel Glenn’s 1962 flight. Click on the following image to find labled pushpins for the corner of Central Control and ICBM Roads (upper right), the road to LC14 and Mercury 7 Memorial.
You will also find a pushpin for the Skid Strip, bottom just to right of center. The earliest cruise missle tests (see “Cruise Missles” and “Post WWII Launch Complexes” ) included navigation to a landing on non-wheeled “skids.” The strip was maintained in support of the manned and later missions when cargo planes delivered the early space capsules, landing, not skidding hopefully, for transfer to a Pre-Launch facility, Hangar S.
Hangar S is seen below as we passed later in the tour. Built 1957 by the military the 61,300 square feet were acquired by NASA in 1959. The early space capsules were tested here in an vacume chamber to ensure the vehicle supported an breathable atmosphere for the occupants.
The first American space voyager was Ham, a chimpanzee. Ham lived in a residential area on the second floor of Hangar S. For a period of time the Mercury 7 shared the spartan second floor quarters. “The Right Stuff” (a 1984 film from a Tom Wolfe book) included scenes from this episode of the program.
Comfortable Quarters
In short order arrangements were made for more comfortable quarters, just off the ocean in Cocoa Beach. It was a new hotel given over entirely to the Mercury 7. Pam and I stayed there in 2018 while taking this tour, it is the La Quinta across from the International Palms. We recommend it a clean, comfortable, reasonably price and a great story to share afterwards. The Atlantic Ocean is a five minute walk.
I learned from the tour how the hotel was donated to the Mercury 7 by a private individual. They owned the hotel. Here is a very informative sign just off the La Quinta lobby with their names. Each first mission, as named by the astronaut, is listed.
Blastoff!!
Next post will feature images of LC14 from 2018.
ClickMe for the next post in this series, “Launch Complex 14 Today.”
ClickMe for the first post in this series, “Cape Canaveral Lighthouse.”
Sources of information for this post: I used information from the Wikipedia site for the key words John Glenn, Launch Complex 14, Mercury-Atlas, Launch Complex 36. Plus a “google” on “Hangar S History” that found an excellent page hosted on the NASA site. Cover photo of Friendship 7 Launch my be found on Flickr in “NASA on the Commons” photostream.
Copyright 2022 Michael Stephen Wills All Rights Reserved.
Island Shrine
part of the Irish landscape
A roadside shrine on Cottage Road, Inishmore. The faith brought by the saints has deep roots here.
A large crucifix set with wet stone walls with cut flowers. The walls are the native limestone.
It is a spring (early June) afternoon and there are fern and wildflowers. The white flowers are Greater Burnet saxifrage (Scientific Name: Pimpinella major).
Click Me for Getty IStock photography of the Aran Islands
The existing dry stone wall was interrupted by the shrine. In the distance are dry stone walls around fields, a stone shed, feeding horses and the sea, being Galway Bay, storm clouds with distant rain.
Aran Islands, County Galway, Ireland.
Click me for the first post of this series, “Horse Trap on Inishmore.”
References: search google “Wet Stone”
Michael Stephen Wills Photography 