The east coast of Florida first heard the roar of a rocket heading toward space 75 years ago today. It failed. But it set the stage for thousands more launches – payloads intended for Earth orbit, the Moon, and targets throughout the solar system.

The military had been conducting test flights from White Sands, New Mexico. But it was limited by the land-locked site. So it turned to a piece of scrubland known as Cape Canaveral.

The site was chosen because it was isolated, it offered a moderate climate, and it was close to the equator, so it gave east-bound rockets an extra kick.

Most important, it offered tens of thousands of square miles of open ocean to catch falling rockets. So workers carved out some space and built several launch pads.

And on July 24th of 1950, they put one of them to work, launching a rocket called Bumper 8. The first stage was a V-2 captured from Germany at the end of World War II. The second stage was a small American-built rocket.

As often happened in the early days, something went wrong. The rocket followed the wrong path, causing the second stage to fail. A second Bumper launch, nine days later, fared a bit better, but still didn’t achieve all of its goals.

Today, Cape Canaveral and the adjoining Kennedy Space Center are busier than ever. Last year, they hosted a record 93 launches – adding to the tally of a 75-year-old spaceport.

Script by Damond Benningfield