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 budget would grow to $234 billion while Space Force spending would shrink to $26 billion under the White House's yearly ask.