From CNN Business' Jackie Wattles It’s hurricane season in the Sunshine State. And the fact that a full day of launch preparations was already dashed by inclement weather earlier this week, has a lot of people wondering: Why do NASA and SpaceX launch rockets from a place with such notoriously fickle forecasts? There’s a few reasons: The ocean: It’s dangerous to launch rockets over populated areas. If something were to go awry, pieces of debris could be damaging or deadly on the ground. So the rockets take off from Florida’s coast and fly out over the Atlantic ocean. The equator: The Earth actually spins fastest at the equator. So, when launching a rocket from North America, it’s best to go as far south as possible. That way, rockets get more of a speed boost by launching with the direction of the planet’s spin. The extra boost is small — but saving any little bit on fuel costs and weight can be a big win in rocketry. Empty land: Kennedy Space Center was built in Brevard County, Florida, in the mid-20th Century because there happened to be a patch of empty land and a nearby military base. Still, Florida’s weather has long made it difficult to predict exactly when a space mission will actually take off. About one third of launches since 1988 have been delayed as a result of bad weather, according to the 45th Weather Squadron. But the astronauts know this is part of the drill. On my first flight STS-127 on Shuttle Endeavour, we scrubbed 5 times over the course of a month for technical and weather challenges. All launch commit criteria is developed way ahead of any attempt. This makes the correct scrub/launch decision easier in the heat of the moment. https://t.co/mOKQ5uBia4