Launch pads and towers rose one by one dotting the shoreline of Florida’s East Coast. By 1960, the Missile Firing Laboratory had become an extension of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. On July 1, 1962, NASA officially activated the Launch Operations Center at the spaceport, granting the center equal status to Marshall and offering the center’s new director, Dr. Kurt H. Debus, a direct report to the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. The following year the center was renamed to honor President Kennedy who put America on the path to the Moon.