The National Park Service has a new Junior Ranger booklet co-designed in partnership with National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The project is part of a multi-agency effort to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing on July 20, 2019. The Spaceflight Explorer Jr. Ranger book is available at participating national parks and through NASA.
Go to the NASA Website. Complete the activities while you learn about the Moon, space vehicles that will take humans to the Moon and to Mars, and national parks across the United States. The Spaceflight Explorer Jr. Ranger book is also a free, printable booklet with math puzzles, thought questions, spot the difference pictures, matching puzzles, scrambled words and anagrams. Take the pledge to become a Spaceflight Explorer Junior Ranger, make your own badge, and put your name on the certificate.
No special badges or patches have been created for use with this booklet. A "badge" has been printed on the inside back cover of the booklet for kids who access the booklet online to cut out and create their own reward for completing the activities.
Learn More
Discover more about how national parks have been a part of the space program all along.
On January 25, 1962, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) formally assigned the task of developing the Saturn V Launch Vehicle, a three-stage rocket designed for a lunar landing mission, to the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama, with launch responsibility committed to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Locations:Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial, Eisenhower National Historic Site
In 1958, amidst a growing space race with the Russians, President Eisenhower called for a civilian space agency. Under Eisenhower's leadership, NASA was born. Explore this story further in this article.
Site Summit, near Anchorage, Alaska, is an exceptionally well preserved Cold war-era Nike-Hercules missile installation and an important physical representation of U.S. military strategy during the Cold War. During World War II the U.S. Army recognized that advancements in Germany's aircraft and missile technology had made America's existing conventional artillery obsolete.
Interest in rockets goes back to ancient times when the Chinese used rockets that burned solid fuel for entertainment and for warfare. The British and other Europeans used rockets in the 19th century for military purposes. They were also used for peaceful purposes such as for launching life-saving equipment from shore into the water to rescue sailors.
Air Force Facility Missile Site 8 (571-7) Military Reservation in Green Valley, Arizona, is the sole remaining Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) complex of the 54 that were "on alert" during the Cold War between 1963 and 1987. The Titan II missiles were constructed to survive a first strike nuclear attack from the Soviet Union and to retaliate. This site is preserved and open to the public today as the Titan Missile Museum.
The Nike defense system was a significant aspect of both civilian life and military planning during the Cold War era in the United States. Nike missiles were radar guided, supersonic antiaircraft missiles. In keeping with the U.S. doctrine of "deterrence," planners hoped that systems like the Nike would make a direct attack on the continental United States so costly as to be futile.
The White Sands V-2 Launching Site, or Launch Complex 33, was developed specifically to accommodate V-2 rocket tests at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico. The launch complex has two important structures: the old Army Blockhouse and the launching crane, also known as the Gantry Crane.
At the end of World War II the Navy established the US Naval Ordnance Test Facilities at Topsail Island, North Carolina, for Operation Bumblebee, a top-secret, experimental project to develop and test ramjet missiles, which advanced the Nation's jet aircraft and missile programs.
Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida has played an important role in the space program and missile testing in the United States. In 1947 Cape Canaveral Air Force Station was selected as the site for a U.S. Missile Testing Range. The first missile, a German V-2 rocket, was launched on July 14, 1950. During the following three years, facilities were constructed for the testing of cruise-type missile weapons including the Matador, Snark and Bomark.
The Redstone Test Stand is the oldest static firing facility at the Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Alabama. Constructed by the Ordnance Guided Missile Center at Redstone Arsenal and transferred to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) in 1960, the Redstone Test Stand was the first test stand in the United States to accommodate the entire launch vehicle for static tests.
