A 179-foot mobile service tower at Cape Canaveral AFS, Fla., came crashing down on Aug. 6, helped along by explosives. The deliberate blast reduced to rubble a former key component of the country’s space programs. The structure was used to launch 51 Atlas/Agena space vehicles in the 1960s and 1970s—including the five lunar orbiter missions for NASA. The last launch was in 1978.
The Air Force plans to conduct more intensive training—and Congress is set to help by boosting funding for exercises and so-called “campaigning” by hundreds of millions of dollars, particularly in the Pacific.
