Zoom into KSC & Cape at new spaceport site

Today, we're unveiling an addition to our space news sites at Florida Today.

A new page dubbed Spaceport is now officially online. The site will be focused on the launch operations centers of Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, with an eye toward news of special interest to local space workers and tourists visiting the Space Coast.

But it's not just a news site. We've developed some fun, interactive new features and tools that we hope will appeal to the broader space community. We invite you to check it out, have some fun and weigh in with suggestions for additions or changes.

Here's some of what you'll find now at Spaceport, with more coming soon:

Space Atlas: an interactive map that lets you navigate around behind the gates at the space center and air force station, zooming in with high-resolution satellite images of everything from the Shuttle Landing Facility to the old pads on rocket row. Visit the locations on the maps of KSC and the Cape and you'll find incredible close-up satellite views, historical info, launch lists, photo galleries and exclusive behind-the-scenes video tours led by our space team reporters. Better than that, for users of the free Google Earth map viewing program, there's an enhanced 3D version of the Atlas. A couple of web mapping blogs have weighed in with some early thoughts on the Space Atlas: Google Maps Mania and Google Earth Blog.

KSC Forums: A place for you to sound off. You could complain about something we've written. You could share your views on space policy or just something that's going on at KSC or the Cape. You can interact there with one another and with us.

Searchable Launch Database: Ever tried to find an easy-to-search, comprehensive listing of every launch from KSC and the Cape? So have we, and we weren't happy with what's online. So we built our own and we hope you'll like it. Today, it includes just the flights tracked by the Eastern Range, but it includes every known launch from 1950 to today. Western Range launches and foreign missions will be added down the road. For now, take a look and let us know what you think. Better yet, tell us what you want added.

We hope you'll find these additions fun and interesting. And we welcome your ideas to make it better.