Easier to leave it than to tear it down. Following the launch of Apollo 7, the first manned Apollo mission on Oct. 11, 1968, Launch Complex 34 had outlived its usefulness. This pad was not adequate for the massive Saturn V vehicle, which launched from Pads 39 A and B. When Apollo 8 launched in December 1968, it marked the first manned flight aboard a Saturn V vehicle, the first manned launch from the Pad 39 complex and the end of the road for Pad 34. Smaller Saturn 1B vehicles were used in subsequent Apollo missions, including Skylab and the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project. But those vehicles were launched from Pad 39 on a modified Mobile Launch Platform.