For more than thirty-five years the Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) has been the last stop on Earth for most American human space missions, beginning with the Apollo missions, through Skylab, and the space shuttle. More than 600 people spend most of their working day in this building, preparing piloted vehicles to launch into space.

In the early 1960s it was recognized that a new, massive building would be needed to evaluate and assemble the large rocket vehicles that would carry the first Americans to the Moon. This building presented many design and construction challenges. Due to an ambitious launch schedule, the VAB had to be able to house several large Saturn rockets at one time. It had to be able to withstand a gigantic nearby explosion in case one of the rockets exploded on or near the launch pad. It had to be able to...