When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin touched down on the lunar surface, it was the culmination of billion of dollars spent, thousands of man hours worked, and the incalculable will of NASA to win the Space Race.

This starting point of herculean triumph can be traced to a small spot on Cape Canaveral: Launch Complex 34, the site of the first Saturn rocket launches that ultimately brought Armstrong and Aldrin to the Moon.

Completed on June 5, 1961, Launch Complex 34 was a crucial step in humanity's journey to the Moon. Its purpose was singular: to host the launches of a new rocket: the Saturn I. The site was witness to these triumphant rocket tests, and the tragedy of the Apollo 1 fire, which killed its crew during a test launch.

This specimen is a piece of firebrick panel, acquired from the pad at Launch Complex 34. It was designed to withstand the intense heat of Saturn I and Saturn IB launches.

The launch complex material was collected by us at auction and came from below the launch pedestal. We are proud to share this incredible step in American achievement as part of our incredible Apollo memorabilia collection. You can learn more about the program and see all our Apollo specimens below.

To commemorate this exclusive item, we created a new 3x4" display card with photos of the launch complex, as well as more information about its history and use by NASA. The larger cards also serve as the certificate of authenticity and feature the official Mini Museum Seal of Authenticity.

Note: Supply of this specimen is very limited!

In the early days of the Apollo program, construction had begun on a new launch complex at NASA’s testing facilities at Cape Canaveral. Launch Complex 34, completed on June 5, 1961, was a crucial step in humanity’s journey to the Moon. Its purpose was singular: to host the launches of a powerful new rocket, the Saturn I.

The small strip of land off the east coast of Florida where this new facility was being constructed already had a history of rocket testing. Cape Canaveral was used by the US Navy in World War II to launch seaplane patrols on the lookout for Axis submarines. After the war, it was transferred to the Air Force which established the Air Force Missile Test Center, the host of several sub-orbital rocket test flights through the 1950s.

After the launch of Sputnik and the formation of NASA, the base became a vital part of the United States' participation in the Space Race. Cape Canaveral hosted six launches as part of NASA's first human spaceflight program, known as Project Mercury. The final rocket of this program, the Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle stood over 80 feet tall with a thrust force of 78,000 pounds. On May 5, 1961, one of these rockets took off from Cape Canaveral's Launch Complex 5 carrying Alan Shepard. He would become the first American and second human being to travel to space.

Only days later, President John F. Kennedy announced a bold plan to land a man on the Moon and return him to Earth within the decade. Soon after, the Apollo program began, all hinging on the construction of the Saturn family of heavy-lift launch vehicles.

The first Saturn I was unlike anything that had come before it. It was a three-stage rocket standing 180 feet high and capable of producing 1,500,000 pounds of thrust. This was the biggest rocket ever launched, towering over the Mercury-Redstone which stood at Cape Canaveral months earlier.

On October 27, 1961, LC-34 completed this first step toward the Moon when it held the first launch of the Saturn I rocket. Excitement was high and tension was higher. There had never been a launch vehicle with a successful flight on its first attempt and there had certainly never been one as big as the Saturn I. A pad explosion could have rendered the new complex inoperable for six months, a major setback to the Apollo program's timeline.

Much to the joy of those watching, however, the SA-1 mission had a near-perfect launch, reaching over 84 miles high into the sky by the end of its 15-minute flight. The Saturn I and LC-34 had succeeded.

This test was followed by three further launches of unmanned Saturn I rockets and two more unmanned launches of the Saturn IB.

On February 21, 1967, tragedy struck the complex when the first crewed mission of the Apollo program, Apollo 1, suffered a fatal cabin fire during a rehearsal launch. All three astronauts on board, Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger B. Chaffee, lost their lives. LC-34 saw one further launch on October 11, 1968. This was Apollo 7, the first crewed NASA mission after Apollo 1. In June 1973, the complex was officially decommissioned, and its resources were scrapped for use for the other launch complexes.

Today, Launch Complex 34 consists only of the concrete pedestal that held the Saturn I rockets, a launch control center now used for storage, and two blast defectors as well as a brick pad that absorbed the tremendous energy of the rocket launches. All of these structures, the basis of the entire Apollo Program, are now weathered and eroded by the Florida weather. A plaque set on one of the columns of the launch pad reads as follows:

LAUNCH COMPLEX 34
Friday, 27 January 1967
1831 Hours

Dedicated to the living memory of the crew of the Apollo 1

U.S.A.F. Lt. Colonel Virgil I. Grissom
U.S.A.F. Lt. Colonel Edward H. White, II
U.S.N. Lt. Commander Roger B. Chaffee

They gave their lives in service to their country in the ongoing exploration of humankind's final frontier. Remember them not for how they died but for those ideals for which they lived.