Can't NASA Find a Better Launch Site?

After bad weather foiled several launch attempts, the Space Shuttle Endeavour finally took off last night from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida’s Cape Canaveral. With stormy weather so typical there, why does NASA continue to use it as a launch site? Because it’s close to the equator, which helps a launching spacecraft more quickly escape Earth’s gravity; because shuttle debris drops in the ocean, not on people; because moving it would cost too much; and besides, there’s bad weather everywhere, explains space historian Roger Launius in a Scientific American article. [%comments]