The Committee to Nuke Elysium

Launch Complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station bears little resemblance to SpaceX’s sleek headquarters. The Air Force used the site most recently for the launching of Titan rockets, now obsolete. SpaceX has leased the site for two years, knocking down the launch tower. In its place it has built a hangar, 225 feet long, 75 feet wide, where the two stages of the Falcon 9 rocket, laid out horizontally, can be mated together along with a Dragon capsule on top.

Much of the launching pad seems like it was assembled during a scavenger hunt. A 125,000-gallon liquid oxygen tank from the Apollo era was bought for $86,000 — the price of scrap metal — and refurbished. SpaceX bought some rusty railroad cars that NASA had used to transport helium and refurbished those, too.