Furthermore, Kennedy is NASA's prime center for payload testing and checkout and provides oversight of space agency missions launched on expend able rockets from Cape Canaveral Air Station, Florida. These cargoes could be a scientific satellite headed for Earth orbit, or bound for interplanetary targets such as the ringed Saturn. Over the brisk pace of NASA's early beginnings, Kennedy has advanced launch procedures, facilities and equipment and cultivated special skills to put the United States into space. Now that the space frontier has been crossed by humans, from Earth orbit to the Moon, there is no turning back. Human curiosity is demanding, as is the response in science and technological development.
Technology inexorably prods the U.S. space program forward, in search of new horizons.
This permanently crewed orbiting facility can enable the U.S. and its partners in Canada, Europe, Japan and Russia to use the space environment to the fullest for the benefit of humankind. Once again, new initiatives are required to process and store large, complex space structures and prepare them for flight. The Space Shuttle is integral to the success of the ISS as it will ferry into space the people and materials necessary to piece together and eventually operate the immense orbiting facility. Logistical integration of station elements with on-going Space Shuttle operations at the Kennedy Space Center pose formidable technical and managerial challenges. Moreover, as the Shuttle fleet nears the end of its design life, shortly after the turn the of the century, a new generation of lower-cost space transportation for passenger and cargo is to come on line.