The Loss of Space Command Headquarters Brings an Alabama City Down to Earth

Even as a child in the 1960s, Jan Davis felt a twinge of resentment about her hometown, Huntsville, Ala., being overlooked.

Rocket tests rattled windows and doors across town, and everyone seemed to have a familial connection to the work of building the rockets that powered NASA’s mission to put a man on the moon. Still, it was mission control in Houston and Cape Canaveral in Florida that became worldwide symbols of the space race.

So when…