KSC chief offers positive vision about the future

Kennedy Space Center managers this morning offered community leaders a positive vision about the center's post-shuttle future.

"We have an awesome future, and we're going to make it happen," Center Director Bob Cabana said at an annual breakfast hosted by the KSC Visitor Complex.

That future includes important, unmanned science missions such as the planned November launch of the next Mars rover, the launch of crews to the space station by the middle of the decade and the launch of an exploration mission by 2021.

Cabana was addressing several hundred community leaders, business executives, educators, community organizers, and state and local government leaders.

Also this morning, Cabana joined NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden for a tour of the 400-foot mobile launcher tower that NASA plans to use for launches of a giant heavy-lift rocket for deep space missions.

Built for the cancelled Constellation program's Ares I rocket, the Apollo-style mobile launch platform and tower is expected to be modified to fit the recently announced Space Launch System.

-James Dean