Every Saturn V engine that powered an Apollo mission to the moon was test-fired in Hancock County, Mississippi. NASA chose the site in 1961 because it was remote enough that the acoustic shockwaves from the most powerful engines ever built would not flatten a city. The government bought out an entire community — the town of Gainesville and surrounding settlements ceased to exist — and created a 125,000-acre acoustic buffer zone around the test stands. The facility, now called Stennis Space Center, still tests rocket engines for NASA and commercial launch providers. SLS core stage engines for the Artemis program were tested here. The INFINITY Science Center at the entrance is the visitor-facing facility — it houses a full-scale Saturn V stage and offers bus tours of the test stands. Stennis is also the largest employer in Hancock County, and the buffer zone has become one of the most ecologically significant undeveloped tracts on the Gulf Coast — an accidental wilderness created by the space race.