As many astronaut memoirs I've read, I've yet to find a good reason for NASA sticking mission control in Texas when its launch site was in Florida -- except for good ol' politicking when Texan LBJ became president.
I went to Houston a few years back to see the USS Texas, a WW2 battleship. It kills me that I didn't think of visiting the space center when I was there, but for me "space center" meant Huntsville, Alabama's space and rocket center..
Lots of things are placed in apparently strange places - factories and so on - that become obvious once politics is taken into account. Of course it makes many things needlessly inefficient and usually more expensive - but as long as certain politicians get votes (or others don't) it will keep happening no matter the consequences....
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As many astronaut memoirs I've read, I've yet to find a good reason for NASA sticking mission control in Texas when its launch site was in Florida -- except for good ol' politicking when Texan LBJ became president.
I went to Houston a few years back to see the USS Texas, a WW2 battleship. It kills me that I didn't think of visiting the space center when I was there, but for me "space center" meant Huntsville, Alabama's space and rocket center..
Lots of things are placed in apparently strange places - factories and so on - that become obvious once politics is taken into account. Of course it makes many things needlessly inefficient and usually more expensive - but as long as certain politicians get votes (or others don't) it will keep happening no matter the consequences....
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