At 9:28 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time, on July 24, Bumper 8 -- a captured World War 2 German V 2 missile with a U.S. Army WAC Corporal upper-stage rocket attached -- lifted off from pad 3 of the Long Range Proving Ground located along Florida's sandy east coast.

Bumper 8 roars to life at 9:28 a.m. Eastern Time on July 24, 1950.

Like its predecessor a half-century ago, the results of the test were less than spectacular. Although the scale model launched perfectly, it was late in deploying its parachute and part of the vehicle crashed on a grassy field.

An aerial view of Launch Complex 3 at Cape Canaveral

In fact, throughout the yearlong celebration of the first rocket launch from the Cape, the theme of looking toward the future was on the minds of everyone involved with Bumper and the other rockets that followed.

"I think we've just scratched the surface, really," said Dick Jones, 75, who 50 years ago was an Army master sergeant sitting in a jeep a half-mile away from the rocket when it lifted off and who spent a majority of his career working in the space program.

"I'm a great believer in eventually we'll send people to Mars. We've got to," Jones said. "There's no question about it. There's enough curiosity about outer space now that there's no way this country can stop. There's no way. It's going to happen."

Consider how much has already happened: Since that first launch in 1950 -- the same year that Silly Putty was introduced, Petit offers with a smile -- more than 3,200 rockets have lifted off from Cape Canaveral.

During the past five decades the Cape scorecard has counted more than 120 different types of rockets and missiles launched from its shore.

Riding on top of those rockets launched from the Cape has been hundreds of communications, weather, navigation, science and military satellites.

Dozens of robot probes have been sent to survey or map every planet in our solar system except Pluto, and hundreds of brave explorers have risked their lives to see what space is like with their own eyes, beginning their trip into orbit from Cape Canaveral.

Twelve men have walked on the moon, relying on rockets and spacecraft launched from the Cape.

Developments in rocketry and spaceflight tested at Cape Canaveral have led to billions of dollars worth of high-tech products and services and improved the standard of living such that space technology touches every American, every day, whether they know it or not.

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For 80-year-old Norris Gray, the Cape's first fire chief and another veteran of the Bumper 8 launch, the most important thing about all that has happened during the past 50 years is that the space program has given humanity a new perspective on our place in the cosmos.

"We're all astronauts," Gray said.

"Since we're on this Earth they call a celestial body, we're space travelers. But we're not the only celestial body floating around in this vastness," Gray said, a touch of impatience in his tone. "I think we should be going faster. We should be going back to the moon and on to Mars."

The launch of Gemini 7

That sentiment is shared by many who live here, a place where the space program has woven itself into the fabric of our local culture, we call this entire area Florida's Space Coast.

The local legacy of Bumper 8 and all that followed can be seen at almost every street corner, often literally, with roads, boulevards and causeways named Apollo, NASA and Minuteman.

We have a city named Satellite Beach, a roller-skating rink named Galaxy Skateway, fabric murals of a space shuttle decorate the walls of a movie theater and you never know when you might see an old Atlas or Titan rocket along the side of a street somewhere.

"It's not bad living on the beach and launching rockets."

"The space program has changed the whole area," said JoAnn Morgan, a deputy director of the Kennedy Space Center that is physically across the Banana River from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, but is considered a part of the whole area locals call the Cape. "Space has become part of the brand of Florida."

Not only a cultural influence, but a significant economic influence as well.

Combining the amount of spent in Florida just by NASA and the Air Force alone, the figure pushes $3 billion each year. Add in the efforts of the commercial space marketplace with its rocket launches, satellite processing and research parks, and you can see that space is unstoppable force in the local area.

But its more than just money, Petit, the Air Force wing commander, offered. It's about people too.

"We are part of that community," Petit said, speaking of the thousands of Air Force and other military personnel who work at the Cape and live in the communities surrounding the Cape, as well as nearby Patrick Air Force Base, where the 45th Space Wing is headquartered.

"If you go out and look at who's working in the Boy Scouts and the Girl Scouts, who's coaching the soccer teams and the football teams and the little league," Petit said. "You find that many of those people are wearing uniforms, not only on the field but in their day to day jobs as well as members of the military."

So what's it like to live on Florida's Space Coast?

KSC Director Roy Bridges, speaking July 15 at the formal 50th anniversary gala sponsored by the local chapter of the Air Force Association, told more than 500 people: "It's not bad living on the beach and launching rockets."

But as much as this anniversary has been about looking back, Bridges, who flew into space aboard Challenger in 1985, reminded everyone to keep looking ahead at what still needs to be done.

"Personally, I would like in the next 50 years to see the first launch of humans to Mars, from this site, not somewhere else," Bridges told the residents of Florida's Space Coast who work on the space program every day. "And it will be up to us to make that happen."