Aerojet Dade Rocket Facility
NASA tested rocket engines here in 1963. They left the rocket. It's still in the Everglades.
In the early 1960s, Aerojet General Corporation carved a test facility into the Everglades to develop solid-fuel rockets for the Apollo program. The facility was massive — canals, launch pads, a 200-foot test stand. Then the contracts dried up. They left everything behind.
What remains is genuinely surreal: a rusting rocket engine the size of a school bus, concrete bunkers slowly being reclaimed by sawgrass, and canals that now serve as alligator highways. The Everglades has been quietly eating it for sixty years.
The site is on private land managed by Miami-Dade County. Access requires a guided tour through the Everglades Restoration program. Book ahead — tours fill fast and run infrequently.