Have you ever wanted to own a piece of NASA history? Here's your chance: NASA is currently seeking bidders for three of its launch pads used during moon missions. Originally built in 1967, each 3700 ton pad was officially used at the Kennedy Space Center to not only carry the Apollo moon program's rockets from an assembly area to the launch site, but to also send those rockets into space. The launch pads were later redesigned to accommodate space shuttles and were used regularly until 2010. Note that it's just the pads themselves that are for sale, not the crawler transporters.
Due to the enormous size and weight of the pads, moving them to a museum would be extremely difficult, and few have adequate space to store and display them. Considering that the launch pads come equipped with the necessary equipment, supplies and connections to launch a rocket, NASA is hoping to receive bids from commercial launch companies, such as Elon Musk's Space X. Another more depressing option for the pads is to break them down and recycle their parts.
Parties interested in the launch pads have until September 6 to put in their bids. So if you have a rocket you're wanting to launch, this might be a good buy for you. In the meantime, NASA already has a brand new launch pad that it will be using for its next rocket mission, the Space Launch System (SLS). The SLS hopes to go into space in 2017.
Via New Scientist
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