Exactly how many launches have there been from Cape Canaveral? The answer is quite simple. No one knows for sure. That's because "official" Cape Canaveral launch chronologies are like snowflakes. No two are alike.

While launches of satellites and astronauts have been very well documented over the years, test launches of missile weapons have in some cases been very poorly documented. This is primarily due to the secret nature of these launches and the speed at which they were taking place, especially in the 1950's and 1960's.

The number 3,182 may not be exact, but it is a good starting point for determining the trends that have shaped the past - and will shape the future - of Cape Canaveral. It may well have been satellites and astronauts that "put Cape Canaveral on the map", but the original purpose of the Cape was to test missile weapons - and lots of them.

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The 1950's were dominated by missile test launches, first winged missiles like Matador, Snark and Navaho and later ballistic missiles like Thor, Atlas and Titan. There were in fact almost 500 launches from the Cape before the first U.S. satellite, Explorer I, was launched from Cape Canaveral on January 31, 1958.

Before the eyes of the world, Cape Canaveral (called Cape Kennedy from 1963 to 1973) became a household name in the 1960's as astronauts were launched into space, beginning with the suborbital launch of Alan Shepard on May 5, 1961. Programs like Mercury, Gemini and Apollo would seal the popularity of Cape Canaveral forever, but in fact NASA has never dominated Cape launch numbers.

NASA accounts for just 14% of all launches from Cape Canaveral, and the 1960's were not dominated by NASA launches, but by missile test launches. An astonishing 35% of all Cape Canaveral launches took place during the 1960's, with a record 206 launches conducted in 1960 alone.

The 1970's witnessed a 50% drop in the number of Cape launches as compared to the 1960's. The U.S. was in the midst of a severe recession and NASA axed the ambitious Apollo Applications Program, which could have supported the creation of a permanent space station and vigorous manned exploration of the Moon and possibly Mars. NASA also abandoned traditional rockets in favor of a delay-plagued Space Shuttle, reducing the number of NASA launches sharply. At the same time, military missiles tested in the 1960's were declared operational, thus reducing the need for test launches from the Cape.

Launch numbers continued to drop dramatically through the 1980's and 1990's, with less launches conducted from the Cape during the 1990's than in any other decade. But, Cape Canaveral has become a true spaceport, with the launches of satellites and spacecraft slowly but consistently overtaking the launches of missiles.

Perhaps when all is said and done, it will be an issue of quality versus quantity at the Cape from now on. With a fairly new but strong commercial launch industry in place and a healthy manned spaceflight program envisioned, Cape Canaveral will likely remain the world's premier spaceport for decades to come. But what will the future hold? Like the exact number of Cape Canaveral launches, no one knows for sure.