PEARLINGTON, Miss. — At 138 feet long, the colossal Saturn V booster rocket is hard to miss as you drive East on I-10 toward Bay St. Louis.

It was built for the Apollo 19 mission, and you can check it out at the Infinity Science Center in Pearlington.

“The Saturn S1C stage that we have here at Infinity Science Center is the first stage of what made up the mighty Saturn 5 rocket, that took men and machines to the moon,” explained Infinity Science Director John Wilson.

Part of the Saturn V Apollo program, this booster rocket is the only one of its kind in the region.

It propelled three astronauts past the gravitational field with the fire and fury of the imagination of man.

“The Saturn V rocket was designed to do just that,” Wilson said.

It’s the future that inspires Wilson to be a facilitator of big dreams.

“I happened to grow up in a time when people were, in fact, making those first baby steps beyond our own planet,” he said. “There’s lots of big dreaming left to do.”

The center is fast at work with improvements, and the plan is to have the Saturn S1C Stage resting in its own building in just a few weeks when the Ex-Sphere-ience Theatre opens.

“That theater is about projecting imagery about the earth on an actual sphere. So its truly a three-dimensional screen,” Wilson said.

Just what is it that inspires mankind toward greater heights?

“I believe its wired down deep in our DNA to look over the next horizon, to climb to the top of the next hill to see what’s beyond. I think we’ve been doing that since the dawn of creation and I believe we will continue to do that as long as we have human will and spirit,” Wilson said.

The rocket stage arrived at the center last summer.

The Infinity Science Center is open Monday-Saturday from 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.