To help celebrate this local legacy as part of a project initiated by the U.S. Library of Congress, the Economic Development Commission of Florida's Space Coast produced in 1999 a documentary entitled Thrust Into Space -- How the Space Program Changed Brevard County.

The following excerpt sets the stage for SPACE.com's special report on 50 years of rocket launches from Cape Canaveral, and is used with permission.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- Rockets are ancient history.

More than 2000 years ago, the Chinese engineered explosive bamboo sticks to scare away spirits. But it wasn't until the war of 1812 that rockets exploded on to the New World. As for space travel, that remained the stuff of science fiction.

But in 1926, Dr Robert H. Goddard successfully launched America's first liquid-fuel rocket. The military didn't pay it much mind. However, in Germany, mathematician Herman Oberth was pioneering similar rocket research. It would take an end to World War 2 to unite American and German rocket scientists in the common cause of space travel.

During the 1940's, military might bolstered Brevard County's economy. World War 2 brought an economic boon to the county with the creation of the Melbourne Naval Air Station, now the site of the Melbourne International Airport; as well as the Banana River Naval Air Station, now known as Patrick Air Force Base. The federal government invested heavily in the county's infrastructure, building roads, bridges and runways.

Meanwhile, further north at the Cape Canaveral lighthouse, the Coast Guard kept watch for German U-boats. But soon, this lone beacon's light in the sky would be joined by a rocket's red glare. The Space Age was dawning and folks from across the country were hearing about a place called Cape Canaveral.

In 1948 Brevard's first space pioneers ventured into no-man's land. They were a skeleton crew of Air Force personnel, sent to reopen the abandoned Banana River Naval Air Station that was closed after World War 2. Soon the Air Force began recruiting civilian workers as word spread that the base would be reactivated as a missile test ground.

After World War 2, the Army began testing and refining German engineered V 2 rockets at White Sands, New Mexico, aided by a team of more than 100 German rocket scientists who had surrendered to U.S. forces at the close of the war. In 1949 the Army decided to expand its launch operations to include a new missile test range at Cape Canaveral, Florida and transfer its missile design team to the Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama.

German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun was spearheading missile research and development in cooperation with American scientists, engineers and technicians. German scientist Dr. Kurt Debus was also part of the team and would later become the first director of NASA's Kennedy Space Center. While von Braun dreamed of exploring space with rockets, the U.S. military wanted missiles for defense.

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In 1949, President Harry Truman decided Cape Canaveral would satisfy both goals. The missile range was designated the Joint Long Range Proving Ground.

The missile range encompassed the Banana River Naval Air Station, the Bahamas Island chain and 15,000 acres of wild scrub and marshland known as Cape Canaveral. It was the nation's first long-range test center for all three branches of the military. It would soon live up to its new name with a rocket named Bumper.

When military and civilian workers arrived to carve out roads and construct the first four launch pads on Cape Canaveral, they did not receive a warm welcome from local residents. By 1950 the U.S. government had purchased or, in some cases, condemned their property while acquiring land necessary to support the first launches from the Cape.

The area's first settlers were commonly called Florida Crackers. They lived in wood frame houses with aluminum pitched roofs and wrap-around porches much like the Grant Historical House that was built in 1916 and today is a landmark, and one of the few remaining vestiges of the early settlers along Florida's eastern coast and waterways.

Some lived on Merritt Island, a long spit of land that sits between the Banana and Indian Rivers, which at the time was home to the community of Georgiana -- a village of 25 families of mostly pineapple and citrus growers. An early-1900 schoolhouse is one of only eight of Georgiana's original buildings still in existence. Later settlers of northern Merritt Island would also relinquish their land to the U.S. government in the name of space.

Even as the last few settlers put up a stubborn fight to remain, truck convoys carrying Bumper-rocket parts filed onto the Cape from White Sands. Assembly teams constructed the first flat concrete launch pad at the Cape, designated Launch Pad 3, to support two planned Bumper launches. Workers built a temporary 20-foot by 20-foot (6-meter by 6-meter) wooden structure, which served as a firing room and command center.

Bumper's staging area was right at Launch Pad 3. Only a faded outline remains where the launch table once stood 4 feet (1.2 meters) off the ground. Nearby stood the launch control shack where engineers sought refuge and monitored Bumper's progress from periscope mirrors.

But launch day -- July 19, 1950 -- didn't go as planned. The rocket, known as Bumper 7, was supposed to be the first launch from the Cape. It was fueled and ready to go, but the rocket misfired and the launch attempt was scrubbed.

Five days later, on July 24, Bumper 8 was cleared for liftoff. A handful of reporters stood 400 feet (121 meters) away as the rocket rose 10 miles (16 kilometers) up. It was a quantum leap into the Space Age.

Nearly ignored by local residents in the seaside communities of Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach, the launch of Bumper 8 was the beginning of the space program, but no one realized it at the time.