Photos: Backstage at Kennedy Space Center, Act 2

As part of Road Trip 2008, News.com reporter Daniel Terdiman got an in-depth tour of Kennedy Space Center. (See this gallery for the first set of pictures from the tour.)

Since 1981, KSC has focused mainly on the space shuttle program. Now, the shuttle is being phased out, and the last of its nine remaining missions is scheduled for 2010. In its place, NASA is getting ready to launch the Constellation program, a new generation of rockets that will feature the Ares 1 rocket and the Orion crew exploration vehicle.

Here, firing room 1 (a firing room is a facility where launch directors, engineers, NASA managers, and others work during missions) at KSC's launch control center is seen as it is being prepared for the first launch in the Constellation program, a test launch scheduled for April 2009.

The room, formerly a launch control facility for the space shuttle program, and before that, Apollo, is being retrofitted for Constellation.