The United States Air Force presents “Cape Kennedy 1964,” a color film examining operations at the John F. Kennedy Space Center in Florida in 1964. We learn how a communications satellite was launched from the space center that enabled people to watch live coverage of the Olympic Games from Tokyo, and more interestingly looks at some of the preparation for the Gemini program flights scheduled for 1965 and the ongoing development of Minuteman ballistic missile. At 4:30, Polaris ballistic missile tests are shown with a Polaris launched from a sub underwater. Engineers are shown working on the deadly weapons as the narrator explains their importance a test launch is shown beginning at mark 03:30. The success of missile tests led to the development of the Titan rocket. Although the Titan was used as an intercontinental ballistic missile deterrent they were also used to send highly successful interplanetary scientific probes and satellites into space, as well as all of the Project Gemini manned space flights of the mid-1960s. A Titan is shown on the launch pad starting at mark 05:05 while the narrator explains the technical aspects of the rocket and a Titan II rocket is shown blasting off at mark 05:40, and we learn about the planned launch of a Gemini spacecraft in 1965. President Lyndon B. Johnson is shown at Cape Kennedy at mark 06:45 for a closer look at the Gemini spacecraft, where he meets with astronauts Gus Grissom and John Young. (The two men formed the crew of Gemini 3, the program’s first manned mission.) There is an animation of the goals of Project Gemini (mark 07:20) including a planned space walk. The picture continues with further discussion of rocket tests including some for the Saturn rockets to be used for Project Apollo and an eventual moon landing, the narrator explains starting at mark 10:28. At 11:51, Dr. Wernher von Braun is seen, Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center. At mark 13:50 the camera takes us to nearby Merritt Island, an adjacent launch site, and the construction of Saturn V launch pads, and at mark 15:00 listen as the narrator explains some of the other missions (including satellite and research missions) that blasted off from the Cape and how those missions are tracked. We learn of the RM-81 Agena rocket and its tests before looking at the Ranger program (mark 22:00). Ranger was a series of unmanned space missions whose objective was to obtain the first close-up images of the surface of the moon. Although the space program had had a number of success stories, the narrator explains how many more technical challenges of landing a man on the moon still lie ahead.

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This film is part of the Periscope Film LLC archive, one of the largest historic military, transportation, and aviation stock footage collections in the USA. Entirely film backed, this material is available for licensing in 24p HD, 2k and 4k. For more information visit http://www.PeriscopeFilm.com