HOUSTON – Thirteen years after KPRC first came to life on air in Houston, a major development skyrocketed our town into space.
NASA announced Houston would be the home of the manned space craft center. By July 1962, the first astronauts moved to town.
KPRC was there for the welcome parade and John Glenn's first words to the city.
"We resorted to look, act and talk the part. We now look the part, we'll follow your lead in acting the part, and howdy," Glenn said.
In 1965, NBC contracted with KPRC to build a studio across from NASA. It was there the first reports on the Gemini 4 flight, in which a man walked in space for the first time, were filed.
It was also in Houston that President John F. Kennedy made his plans to send a man to the moon loud and clear.
"From this place in America are going to be laid the plans and designs which will reach out in this decade and put Americans on the moon and bring them back again," Kennedy said.
In July 1969, KPRC was the station that broadcast that moon landing to the world.
Neil Armstrong's words were heard and seen from space thanks to KPRC engineers.
"It's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."
The space shuttles flew our astronauts for 30 years. We followed the painful days with the loss of space shuttles Columbia and Challenger. We still celebrate the shuttles' work building the International Space Station.
We were also there when the world's most powerful rocket, the SpaceX Falcon Heavy launched one year ago from the Kennedy Space Center. Now, commercial companies are on the brink of something big -- launching American astronauts from American soil on American rockets
SpaceX plans to launch its unmanned crew Dragon as early as next month. This will be a big step, with a commercial company preparing to carry astronauts to the International Space Station.
