This Alabama City Helped the Artemis II Moon Mission—How to Visit America’s “Rocket City’

During the “space race” in the years after World War II, the city of Huntsville, Alabama was selected to construct the rockets that would get America to the moon. A group of scientists, led by German-born Wernher Von Braun, assembled the Saturn V rocket at the Marshall Space Flight Center that made the Apollo 11 mission successful, allowing for the “giant leap for mankind.”

Today, the Marshall Space Flight Center continues to design and manufacture spacecraft and materials and to support NASA missions, including the recent Artemis II lunar flyby.

Outside of space exploration, Huntsville is evolving yet again, with new hotels, breweries, and live music venues that have turned the city into one of the South’s most appealing destinations.

The city’s first boutique hotel, 106 Jefferson, opened in 2021, and earned AAA Four-Diamond designation. Its rooftop bar, Baker & Able, is named for the two monkeys that went to space in the nose cone of an Army Jupiter missile in 1959. The hotel’s art collection is also inspired by—what else—outer space.

There’s also Hotel Indigo, in the burgeoning MidCity District, just steps away from Apollo Park and The Camp, an outdoor restaurant with converted shipping containers and food trucks. 

Thanks in part to the people that moved to the city to work for NASA, Huntsville has old-school German restaurants like Ol Heidelberg. There’s also a plethora of craft breweries, like Campus No. 805, which is housed in a converted middle school and has an old-school pinball arcade. Trendy coffee shop Gold Sprint is the best place to start the day with lavender lattes and egg biscuits plus live music by night. 

The Saturn V rockets are just part of the appeal at the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, which is home to the famed Space Camp. Adults can get in on the fun, too, with simulations and immersive lessons, plus exhibits that include a moon rock and several rockets used in past missions. Visitors can also visit the grave of Baker, the monkey who survived the 1959 test flight.

Huntsville is also developing as an alternative music destination to cities like Nashville, especially after the opening of The Orion Amphitheater, created by Ben Lovett of Mumford & Sons. It takes its inspiration from nearby Muscle Shoals Sound Studio, where many top artists recorded in the 1960s. The venue has already hosted Neil Young, Jason Isbell, and Stevie Nicks.