The US Department of Defense had 11,354 active military personnel in Alabama in 2002. The major installation in terms of expenditures was the US Army's Redstone Arsenal at Huntsville. Redstone is the center of the Army's missile and rocket programs and contains the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which directs all private contractors for the space program. Among the spacecraft developed there were the Redstone rocket, which launched the first US astronaut; Explorer I, the first US earth-orbiting satellite; and the Saturn rocket, which boosted the Apollo missions to the moon. Other installations include Ft. Rucker (near Enterprise); the Anniston Army Depot; Maxwell Air Force Base (Montgomery), site of the US Air University, Air War Colleges, and national headquarters for the Civil Air Patrol; and Gunter Air Force Base (also in Montgomery). During 2001, Alabama firms received defense contract awards totaling over $3.4 billion.
There were 447,397 veterans of US military service in Alabama as of 2000, of whom 73,515 served in World War II; 55,278 in the Korean conflict; 126,847 during the Vietnam era; and 60,227 during 1990–2000 (including the Persian Gulf War). For the fiscal year 2002, total Veterans Affairs expenditures amounted to $1.0 billion. As of June 2000, the Alabama Department of Public Safety employed 628 full-time sworn officers.