The Saturn V rocket would need its own launch complex and hangar. Cape Canaveral, on Florida’s east coast, was chosen as the perfect site. On July 1, 1962, NASA activated its Launch Operations Center there, naming Kurt Debus as director. Debus was the ardent Nazi who, during the war and on his own volition, had turned an engineering colleague over to the Gestapo for making anti-Hitler remarks. To house the giant Saturn rocket, NASA constructed the Vertical Assembly Building on nearby Merritt Island. The structure would soon become the most voluminous building in the world—larger than the
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