But nature had surrendered only reluctantly to the advance of the Space Age: it took the Army Corps of Engineers three years and stupendous quantities of insecticide to render the area “biologically unfit” for the mosquito; the foundations of the monumental Vehicle Assembly Building, which was large enough to contain the Great Pyramid of Cheops, were anchored by thousands of steel tubes driven into bedrock 160 feet beneath the surface of the island, to stabilize the boxlike structure in high winds. And the subtropical weather could be unpredictable, bringing violent thunderstorms in the
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