Yesterday I went to an abandon rocket testing facility.

[Sexy Beast]

So yesterday one of my friends text messaged me at 9:50 am and asked me if I was down to go to an abandon rocket testing/research facility. Now I just woke up, but I had nothing better to do yesterday so I said yes. In an hour we were on our way.

Now this place is just south of Florida City, Florida. To give you a little idea of what that means here is a map of Florida:

Yeah, Florida City is basically the southern most town in Florida and we were going south of that.

We were at the red circle.

So anyway we drove a hundred or so miles to to this place armed only with our cell phones and here is what we found.

Here's the gate after this we had to get out of the car and walk:

This was just beyond the gate:

Yeah, those are all bullet casings:

Then a three mile walk down this bug infested, god forsaken road:

Anyway enough narration, here's what we found:

 

[Sexy Beast]

Spent shotgun shell in facility:

 

[Caped_Sensei]

HEY! Did you see that sky! It looks cool right?

 

[Sexy Beast]

HEY! Did you see that sky! It looks cool right?

Yeah, the sky over the wetlands always looks awesome.

 

[Lance]

Take it over and make it eGO's new Headquarters/paintball/airsoft facility.

 

[blackhawksniper]

/paintball/airsoft facility.

I was thinking how fun that would be to play in




Those are some pretty cool pictures, place looks really interesting

 

[Sexy Beast]

I was thinking how fun that would be to play in




Those are some pretty cool pictures, place looks really interesting

Paintball would be pretty cool, though I would get your tetanus shots before playing. There is rust everywhere.

Also here is a bit of history on the place as told by Wikipedia:

In the 1960s, Aerojet solid fuel technology was under consideration for use in Saturn first stages. A monolithic, 21-foot-diameter (6.4 m) motor was designed, which was too big to be transported by rail. A facility was constructed in the Florida Everglades where the motors could be built and tested, and then barged to Cape Canaveral. A canal was dug (C-111), the southernmost freshwater canal in Southeast Florida, and a drawbridge was installed for the U.S. Highway 1 crossing at mile marker 116. The canal was dubbed the "Aerojet Canal". SW 232nd Avenue was renamed "Aerojet Road". When the Aerojet product was not selected for the Saturn project, and segmented boosters were chosen for the Space Shuttle, the land and facilities were returned to the state, and are now managed by the South Florida Water Management District and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission as a nature preserve. The Aerojet signage still remains for both the road and canal and most of the facility's buildings remain intact, although weather-damaged

 

[Narh]

If I happen to fall into nuclear waste and mutate into some disfigured thing, I know where I'm making my base at

 

[Jaggededge]

luckily there were no zombies ...

 

[Bryan]

 

[xosniper]

YA, WTH, where are all the mutated zombies running around?!?!?!?!

 

[Noise]

awesome o.o

 

[Sexy Beast]

We only managed to cover half the facility before we realized that doing this without any water was a bad idea. So we're heading back in November with a couple more people and better equipment...and hopefully a better camera.

We missed the manufacturing wing, the administrative buildings, and the silo where they kept the rocket motors...which are apparently still there. So expect a follow up thread on this in like six months.

 

[Rukus.]

Whats with the bullet casings? Gang activity or military activity?

Also if you guys organized an airsoft event big enough (100+ people, which wouldn't be hard with such a great location) late in the year (november, maybe jan-feb) I may actually be tempted to get some coach tickets and fly down for a day.

 

[LadyFace]

That is so cool! I've been down to Cape Canaveral and such, but I never heard about that place. I think next I'm in florida again, I'm totally going to go there and get some good shots.

Also - Most definitely good for Paint ball

 

[Sexy Beast]

Whats with the bullet casings? Gang activity or military activity?

Hard to tell, though you can hunt in the area during hunting season so it could be hunters. But here is where it gets weird, the shell casings were just on the south side of the gate that I took a picture of...but what I didn't take a picture of was the white van that was just sitting there unoccupied. Or of the access road, that doesn't show up on google maps satellite, that leads to a large razor wire fence that was protecting something that we couldn't see.

My guess, is that it's either a military installation or something owned by the federal government. Definitely something that we didn't want to investigate or take pictures of.

 

[shan^K]

That place looks creepy, take your friends there in the middle of the night and scare the pants off them.

 

[Carmine]

Hard to tell, though you can hunt in the area during hunting season so it could be hunters. But here is where it gets weird, the shell casings were just on the south side of the gate that I took a picture of...but what I didn't take a picture of was the white van that was just sitting there unoccupied. Or of the access road, that doesn't show up on google maps satellite, that leads to a large razor wire fence that was protecting something that we couldn't see.

My guess, is that it's either a military installation or something owned by the federal government. Definitely something that we didn't want to investigate or take pictures of.

Now I'm curious. You should totally overthrow the government so you can find out what is behind that fence.

 

[Cacophonus]

No fence should stop you. Lets do this and go explore behind that razor-fence- it'll be much more thrilling than the facility.

 

[Byakuya]

I hope you were carfull, you dont know how those spent shell casings got there ^^.
Thanks for sharing.