INFINITY Science Center — Apollo 19 Saturn V

The 138-foot rocket stage lying outside looks like it fell from the sky, but it was built for a moon mission that never flew. S-IC-15 would have generated 7.5 million pounds of thrust as the first stage of Apollo 19. The mission was cancelled in 1970. Fred Haise, the Apollo 13 astronaut born in Biloxi, would have commanded it. He helped bring the stage here in 2016. Every Saturn V that reached the moon was test-fired thirty minutes west at Stennis Space Center. NASA announced formation of the Mississippi Test Facility on October 25, 1961 — the Apollo motors were too loud for Marshall Space Flight Center's existing stands near Huntsville. They needed isolation, and they found it in the high terrace bordering the East Pearl River. Before the first test stand was poured, five towns were erased: Gainesville, Logtown, Napoleon, Santa Rosa, Westonia, plus the northern portion of Pearlington. The effort acquired 3,200 parcels — 786 residences, 16 churches, 19 stores, three schools. The 13,500-acre test area sits inside a 125,000-acre acoustical buffer zone. The silence of vanished towns still doing its work. Inside the 72,000-square-foot building: the Apollo 4 command module and a moon rock from Apollo 15 you can touch. Bus tours visit the test stands where RS-25 engines are being certified for Artemis moon missions. The A-1 Test Stand was renamed the Fred Haise Test Stand in March 2020 — the astronaut's name on the place that would have certified his ride. The center opened in April 2012. Free general admission. Bus tours require a separate ticket and sell out — book ahead.