Manatees near the NASA Causeway Bridge

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- The 525-foot-tall Vehicle Assembly Building is seen from this view looking north across the inland waterway of the Banana River at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. In view to the right is the Mobile Launcher. The center shares a boundary with the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge encompasses 140,000 acres that are a habitat for more than 330 species of birds, 31 mammals, 117 fishes, and 65 amphibians and reptiles. It contains more than 1,000 known plant species. The marshes and open water of the refuge provide wintering areas for 23 species of migratory waterfowl, as well as a year-round home for great blue herons, great egrets, wood storks, cormorants, brown pelicans and other species of marsh and shore birds, and a variety of insects. Photo credit: NASA/Ben Smegelsky