With all of the great successes of NASA witnessed by Americans at the Kennedy Space Center, there have been tragedies as well. A fire on the launch pad during preparation for the first scheduled Apollo flight on January 27, 1967, took the lives of the three-man crew in the Apollo I capsule. Nineteen years later, an explosion 73 seconds after the launch of the Space Shuttle Challenger killed the entire crew while millions of people watched the launch both at the Cape and on television around the country.

During its landing descent to Kennedy Space Center, February 1, 2003, Space Shuttle Columbia exploded killing the entire seven-member crew. NASA has preserved the more than 83,000 pieces of debris retrieved from eastern Texas, which are now housed in the 16th floor of the Vehicle Assembly Building to allow access for future aerospace research.

The achievements of America's space program were not limited to successful launchings, moon landings, and exploratory missions. Through NASA and the quest to explore space, social barriers as well as physical ones were broken through. In 1983, physicist and astronaut Sally Ride became first American woman and youngest American (at the time) to travel in space. After joining NASA in 1978, Ride performed crucial research and development work and logged hundreds of hours in space. Since leaving the program, Dr. Ride enjoyed a successful career in academia, as a public scientist, and as a writer and creator of a company that designs science tools for younger students, Sally Ride Science.

Also launching from Kennedy Space Center in 1983, Colonel Guion Bluford became the first black American in space as a member of the crew for the Space Shuttle Challenger. As a distinguished pilot in the Air Force, Col. Bluford flew more than 140 combat missions during the Vietnam War. In 1978, Col. Bluford completed a Ph.D. in aerospace engineering. As an astronaut, Col. Bluford logged nearly 700 hours in space and made significant contributions to space shuttle and space lab design before continuing his career as an executive in the private aeronautics industry.