Star Wars and Space Pork: The Kodiak Launch Complex
By Stacey Fritz
Last edited April 23, 2002
Kodiak Island, Alaska, is a place renowned for its bountiful natural attributes. Located 250 miles southwest of Anchorage, Kodiak has majestic snow-capped mountains sloping down to lush green forests and one of the world's most abundant fisheries. Fur seals, crab, whale, herring, halibut, and four species of salmon have provided food and a reliable local economy for the various inhabitants of Kodiak for thousands of years. The world's largest land-carnivores, Kodiak Brown Bears, densely inhabit the island. Of the 15,000 human residents of the island, roughly half live within the City of Kodiak.
A small group of those residents gathered in the Kodiak high school auditorium one evening in 1995 to learn about yet another great natural bounty that their island has to offer. Few of them had known about the island's geographic stroke of luck or understood its enviable "azimuth." They had come to meet representatives of a young state-owned and run business, the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation.
Creating an Alaskan Space Mecca
State legislators had created the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation (AADC) in 1991. Fairbanks legislator Tom Moyer sponsored the bill authorizing an Alaskan space authority (Treadwell, 1998), which promoted an enticing vision for a "commercial space mecca" in Alaska (Kizzia, 1998). Other legislators were initially unconvinced, and Moyer's bill only inspired one co-sponsor. According to Mead Treadwell, legislative attitude started to change after Apollo 17 commander Gene Cernan, who later became an AADC board member, came to the Alaskan capital to make the case for the AADC. Eventually, strong Alaskan aerospace supporters included governors Wally Hickel and Tony Knowles, Senators Ted Stevens and Frank Murkowski, Congressman Don Young, Kodiak borough mayor Jerome Selby, University of Alaska professor Syun-ichi Akasofu, and the AADC board. One man-Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation director Pat Ladner-"never took no for an answer," (Treadwell, 1998).
Governor Wally Hickel and the legislature established the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation as a public corporation of the State, administratively housed within the Department of Commerce and Economic Development and affiliated with the University of Alaska. AADC had a separate legal existence, however, from both those organizations. State statutes gave the governor authority to appoint the corporation's board of nine directors, which must include members from the University of Alaska, the Department of Commerce and Economic Development, the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation, the aerospace industry, and the public. The statutes established that the president of the University of Alaska would serve as chairman of the board, and that it would also include two non-voting members from the legislature (Alaska State Legislative Budget and Audit Committee (hereafter: LB&A), 1995).
The purpose of the corporation was to allow Alaska to take a lead role in the exploration and development of space, to enhance human and economic development, and to provide a unified direction for space-related economic growth and space-related educational and research development. AADC was also to champion the continued utilization of the Poker Flat Research Range for the university's polar research, the promotion of space-related tourism, and the development of a state strategy for implementing space-related economic growth (LB&A, 1995). The project would be financed largely through state bonds, and profits from the commercial launches would then pay back the state. The AADC was presented as a "hard-nosed business deal using the state's financial muscle to put Alaska on the cutting edge of a new high-tech industry," (Kizzia, 1998).
Priming Kodiak
To many locals at the public meeting in Kodiak, the project that the aerospace corporation proposed sounded too good to be true. Because of its location and the working infrastructure already in place, Kodiak Island is the perfect location from which to launch rockets into space. It is secluded and provides a wide, unobstructed downrange flight trajectory--a great launch azimuth--over open ocean to the South Pacific. These advantages, according to the AADC, made Kodiak one of the best locations in the world for polar orbit launch operations and ideal for launching telecommunication, remote sensing, and space science satellites into orbit.
Coordinating Draft North Pacific Targets Program Environmental Assessment, p. 2-5: Kodiak Launch Complex Southeast Trajectory
The representatives of the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation explained that they needed the broad range of skilled services available on the island. They were pleased that Kodiak boasts its own local telephone exchange, an island-wide electrical utility, a cable television company, several grocery store chains, a good construction workforce, and skilled technicians. Kodiak Island has a wealth of transportation facilities to benefit launch activities, as it has one of the busiest fishing ports and the largest Coast Guard base in the world. AADC also noted that the climate of Kodiak, although it is far north, enjoys a yearly mean temperature of 40 degrees Fahrenheit. They found that the visibility and prevailing winds compare favorably with those of Vandenberg Air Force Base in California (AADC website).
The fishing industry had not been as strong in recent years as some had hoped and the borough administration was going through tough financial times, so, naturally, the people of Kodiak were excited to hear about the many local advantages to be reaped from having a commercial spaceport right outside of town. Beyond boosting business for stores, utilities, and contractors, the people learned that the spaceport would add substantially to Kodiak's economic diversity. The representatives of AADC explained that Kodiak would have rocket scientists and astronauts in its schools, a Challenger Learning Center, and a powerful place in the burgeoning industry of telecommunications. Not only would launching the satellites into orbit bring great benefits to the island, but local people would be trained at Kodiak College for the new employment positions in this private commercial enterprise (Studebaker, 2000), AADC touted "the superb location combined with low-cost innovations" (AADC website) and an $18 million facility that would be financed largely with state-backed bonds--an economic gift (Kizzia, 1998).
A few residents raised questions about the environmental impacts of rocket launches, but the AADC administrators assured them that a thorough Environmental Impact Statement would first assess all of the possible social, economic, and environmental effects of the proposed Kodiak Launch Complex, also known as Kodiak's Spaceport. Some residents expressed the concern that the launch site risked becoming a tool of the military, but they were promised that all operations would remain entirely commercial. The executive director of AADC, Pat Ladner, stated at local meetings that the launch facility would not be run by the military, but would remain state-owned and operated under the Department of Transportation. In response to concerns about rocket launches involving nuclear materials, Ladner read a letter to the public from a satellite manufacturer affirming that communication satellites don't use uranium, enriched uranium, or plutonium. ("Kodiak forum…"1997). Ladner boasted that the Kodiak launch site would be the only state-operated commercial launch range in the U.S. "What we offer is an opportunity for commercial satellite people to control their own operations. At other launch sites, you always have to worry about being out-prioritized by a military launch," (Clark, 1997). The company's website affirmed a commercial approach as well. Local politicians and city officials welcomed the plan with great enthusiasm and prepared for the space market boom that was headed their way (Studebaker, 2000).The Audit
Soon after AADC proposed the project to the Kodiak public, the State of Alaska Legislative Budget and Audit Committee undertook an economic review of AADC's business plan to determine if the corporation's financial transactions were consistent with its mission and in compliance with state procurement statutes. The study also sought to determine whether AADC's relationships with other entities, including federal agencies, were "appropriate" (LBAC, 1995).
The audit initially questioned why AADC, once Ladner had been hired in 1992, removed the corporation's accounting tasks from the state's accounting system. AADC started using its own personal computer accounting system, separate and distinct from the State's system, even though the state system offered several critical advantages-centralized internal controls, flexible management reporting, and data security. It was also unusual since the State, through the Department of Commerce and Economic Development (DCED), was funding AADC, and AADC's accounting must have been increasingly complex as the business grew and started large-scale projects. DCED was still taking care of AADC's payroll and other administrative functions, but AADC handled its own vendor payments. In addition, the financial information that AADC provided back to the state accounting system was incomplete, complicating the task the auditors faced. As the audit proceeded, AADC recognized the advantages of the state's system and began using it exclusively (LBAC, 1995).
State statute required AADC to use procurement procedures that were "substantially equivalent" to the State's procurement code. This law specifies that state agencies must acquire goods and services in a manner that provides increased public confidence, ensures fair treatment for all persons who deal with state procurement, maximizes the purchasing power of state funds, and fosters effective, broad-based competition. The way the State advocates doing this is by issuing a request for proposal (RFP) and getting sealed competitive bids. However, the AADC procedures for hiring firms or contractors noted that "the executive director may determine in the executive director's sole discretion" the contractor who gets the bid. The legislative auditors thought that Pat Ladner's practice of simply choosing contractors with no documentation of how he had selected them differed considerably from state procurement code requirements. Over half of AADC's money, from 1993-1995, went to hiring contractors. The audit found that AADC's procurement policy did not require competitive principles and that, in a multitude of examples where an RFP would have been appropriate, AADC simple entered into sole source contracts with no determination that the vendor was the only source. A small example: by 1995 the aerospace firm had paid approximately $16,000 to a graphic design firm owned by the son of AADC's assistant director (LB&A, 1995).
The auditors next turned their attention to money that the AADC had received from the Air Force Dual Use Grant program. The grants, totaling $1,850,000, were to be used for initial construction of the Kodiak Launch Complex and required AADC to submit the names of the construction and consulting firms they chose. AADC didn't solicit any bids, but Pat Ladner told the auditors he chose his team of aerospace industry firms based upon "primary verbal responses received, undocumented negotiations, and prior experience with the firms." As of June, 1995, AADC had paid over one million dollars of its federal grant money to those firms. As a result, all work on the initial engineering, design, site assessment and environmental efforts for the KLC was awarded with no competitive process (LB&A, 1995).
The Air Force would only pay for 75 percent of the KLC start up costs, however. AADC had to match fifteen percent, and the remaining ten percent had to be contributed by industry. AADC therefore established a for-profit subsidiary called Alaska Launch Services Corporation and planned to transfer AADC's corporate money into that "industry" so that Alaska Launch Services could "contribute" it back to AADC, fulfilling the ten percent industry matching requirement. AADC abandoned this "scheme" once it discovered that state statute prohibited it from owning stock in the new company (LB&A, 1995).
AADC also planned to get the industry matching funds by securing commitments from aerospace firms, so AADC made contracts with several members of the same firms that it had uncompetitively chosen. The audit notes that the arrangements appeared mutually beneficial. The firms agreed to "contribute" money to AADC to meet the grant match requirement, and then the firms won contracts with AADC for the exact same amount (LB&A, 1995).
Another point that the audit questioned was AADC's executive director's employee contract. In addition to an annual salary of $103,000, Pat Ladner's contract includes a monthly $500 after-tax vehicle allowance, a doubling of the state's normal moving expenses, and a severance package that lasts ten months and includes full salary and the car allowance (LB&A, 1995).Missile defense
By 1997, construction of the Kodiak Launch Complex still had not begun. The cost, however, had grown to $24 million without securing any commercial contracts. After the audit, state agencies had determined that further investment in the AADC was too risky. Other promoters of the project were less timid. Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens, then chair of the Senate Appropriations defense subcommittee, was one of them. Suddenly, Stevens inserted $23 million for Air Force missile defense programs on the fiscal 1997 defense budget, of which $18 million would go towards construction of the rocket launch complex (Demer, 1997). The Air Force would keep the $5 million for other missile tests. The Air Force did not request the funding and it was not included in either the House or the Senate appropriation bills, but it showed up during the conference committee negotiations on the final budget that year (Demer, 1997; Kizzia, 1998). "After consulting with US Sen. Ted Stevens," the Air Force developed the plan to fund the Alaskan project and said it wanted the funding because Kodiak was a good location for missile defense tests. Drones could be launched from Kodiak, and interceptor missiles fired from California or the Pacific could try to target them. The Air Force said it would have to do an assessment of the environmental impact of sub orbital launches, but then they would give the money to build the launch complex (Demer, 1997). NASA and the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation each agreed to contribute $5 million if the Pentagon money came through. Jamie Kentworthy, director of the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation, reported: "We talked with…the Air Force, and they don't expect the (environmental study) to raise any new significant environmental issues," ("Work nears on Kodiak…"Anchorage Daily News, 1997).
The business community of Kodiak breathed a sigh of relief. The mayor of Kodiak at the time, Jerome Selby, insisted that Pentagon money didn't mean the project would become a military matter. "You get risk capital from where you can get it," he said. "The private sector and the state were not willing to put in risk capital. The launch facility is not a military facility." The bottom had dropped out of the Iridium satellite phone business and telecommunications overall were not picking up as quickly as aerospace promoters had hoped, and this was widely accepted as the reason AADC had a hard time securing commercial contracts. Mayor Selby said launching drones for the military had always been part of the plan. An ad that AADC had run in the April, 1995 edition of Space News inviting investment partnerships distinctly did not reflect that military drones had always been part of the plan, as it sought "to establish…a facility tailored to commercial interest and licensed through the Department of Transportation to be operated as a commercial space initiative where commercial activities have number one priority-regardless of changes in political priorities or the geopolitical environment," (FBAC, 2000).
"The military is not buying ownership in it. It's still a privately owned launch pad doing military launches." As such, Mayor Selby continued, the city could still dictate what was restricted. "We're still saying no nukes, no radioactive stuff, no bombs," ("Rocket facility funded," Anchorage Daily News, 1997).
AADC executive director Pat Ladner, still without a single commercial contract, concurred. "The market is out there. It's getting to the point to where it is about to emerge. So we hope that the government launches will give us that initial boost to go right into the commercial market." Mayor Selby also mentioned studies finding that the Kodiak economy would get annual benefits of $3 million and that the launches would be educational for locals and school kids (Demer, 1997). Others supporters noted that the project would create between 50 and 140 new jobs (Kizzia, 1998). Those few residents who had raised questions before, however, became more suspicious.Environmental Security
Along with concerned Fish and Wildlife officials, interested residents had been waiting for the thorough Environmental Impact Statement that had been promised by the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation. The AADC planned to build the Kodiak Launch Complex on 3,077 acres of state land at Narrow Cape, 25 miles south of town and a favorite recreational site for locals and tourists. Kodiak has a very limited road system, and locals appreciated that this was the only non-developed area they could reach on the island by car. The area off Narrow Cape is a corridor heavily used by gray whales during their seasonal migrations, and Kodiakans celebrate this magnificent event every year with a weeklong Whale Fest. Several threatened bird species nested in the area around Narrow Cape. Worse, some residents worried, was the fact that the rocket launch trajectories, involving loud noise and sonic booms, would be directly over Steller sea lion haul-outs.
The population of the Steller sea lion has declined over 80 percent across the Gulf of Alaska and the Aleutian chain since the 1960s, and no one knows why. The Steller is officially endangered, and efforts to protect it have meant that certain types of commercial fishing in Alaska have faced massive-some say economically fatal-restrictions. The largest investigation into a single species of wild animals ever undertaken focuses on the Steller sea lion, and some $80 million has been dedicated to this campaign. Ironically, the monolithic Alaska Sea Life Center, a public aquarium and marine laboratory, has been called a marine Cape Canaveral (O'Harra, 2002). Alaskan Senator Ted Stevens has been extremely involved in getting funding for the research and SeaLife Center. The military, however, is exempt from the ban on harassment of sea lions.
Wildlife officials on Kodiak looked forward to participating in an assessment of the abundance and diversity of all the species in the area and noted that the island was as of yet free from major pollution, a vital ingredient in healthy fish populations. "Here's an area that's had no pollution that's going to be drastically affected," said Kodiak resident Mike Sirofchuck in 1996 as the program was being promoted. "There are no studies for this climate that can really tell us what will happen when those launches take place and the effects," (CNN, 1996).
Coordinating Draft North Pacific Targets Program EA, p. 1-2: Kodiak Island.
In 1996, the people of Kodiak learned that the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation would not have to produce an Environmental Impact Statement for the Kodiak Launch Complex. Senator Ted Stevens had attached a rider to a transportation bill that exempted the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation from doing one, and the AADC with the Federal Aviation Administration quickly prepared a Kodiak Launch Complex Environmental Assessment (EA) instead, a significantly less thorough investigation (Studebaker, 2000). Local critics contend that the EA included the bare minimum of studies to allow construction to begin with little input from the community. Instead of hiring geologists to survey the area, which sits atop a large fault system whose historic seismology had not been determined, much of the data on soil and erosion factors in the Environmental Assessment was from forty-year old documents (AADC & FAA, 1996). They argued that poor information on the unknown occurrence and severity of earthquakes put the huge financial investment at risk, as well as the immediate environmental damage that could occur from the many toxic and highly flammable materials stored on site.
Figure :Kodiak resident Stacy Studebaker protesting military testing
at the Kodiak Launch Facility, 1996. Photo by Mike Sirofchuk.The report had concluded that the facility's construction and operation would have no significant impact, including assurances that it would not threaten endangered species. The directors of AADC held a public meeting in Kodiak to answer questions about the Environmental Assessment, with the requirement that all questions on the EA had to be submitted in writing before the meeting. By the deadline, the AADC had received 230 questions from the public. During the meeting, the AADC claimed that they had not had the time or the staff to address all the inquiries. Residents became incensed when, in response to questions, the AADC representatives read directly from the Environmental Assessment. Critic Mike Sirofchuck explained that many were insulted by this recital: "They've already studied the EA. The questions they submitted asked for further clarification." Sixty of the 100 residents who attended showed up wearing orange pig noses and, satirizing the spaceport, pins that read "Space Pork Kodiak" in protest of what they now fully perceived to be a pork-barrel project ("Kodiak forum angers…" 1997).
Kodiak residents protesting the Kodiak Launch Complex in 1996. Photo by Stacy Studebaker.Concluding that neither AADC nor their state agencies were about to provide them with all the information they wanted, a small group of concerned local residents formed the Kodiak Rocket Launch Information Group and started gathering data on the possible effects of the rocket launches. They warned other residents that the launch complex could become a military installation, but this idea was still largely dismissed. They noted that there are already 17 designated toxic waste sites on Kodiak that were abandoned by various branches of the military and government. Information about the toxicity of rocket launches worried them-they thought it was significant that each launch could release approximately 23,500 pounds of hydrochloric acid into the atmosphere and other dangerous substances into the ocean (CNN, 1996). The information group acquired a shelf at the local library and began a collection of materials related to the rocket launch complex so that local residents could learn what AADC was not telling them.
Commercial missile defense
Seven years after its inception, the Kodiak Launch Complex was still under construction and its costs were up to $37 million. Congress approved another $5 million in the 1998 federal budget to help pay the KLC's construction costs. As it neared completion, Kodiak awaited the arrival of commercial contracts. They didn't materialize, but the Air Force, who had by now paid more than half of the cost of the complex, came in with concrete proposals to launch test missiles for its Atmospheric Interceptor Technology (Kizzia, 1998). The Air Force had announced it was pleased that Kodiak was well suited to simulate missile attacks from China and North Korea, and Kodiak-launched drones would be used to test radar and other sensing systems from either California or the Pacific. As an Air Force official reported, "the area off the Alaska coast is the one part of the world we can go and fly without range safety and environmental issues that have haunted many anti-missile programs," ("Rocket facility funded," Anchorage Daily News, 1997).
The executive director of the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation, Pat Ladner, still remained optimistic about commercial launches but explained that "in the long run it benefited us that the commercial market didn't come on the scene like people thought it would, because we would have missed the boat. We look at the government and commercial space as one and the same: They're customers." (Kizzia, 1998).Star Warrior
A quick glance at Pat Ladner's resume might not inspire much confidence in his experience in the commercial space business. Before being named to his current position as the head of the AADC, Air Force Lt. Col. Pat Ladner worked within the Strategic Defense Initiative Organization as the manager of a program called Single-Stage-to-Orbit. While it was projects like the current missile defense system that originally almost did in the single-stage research, the current missile defense system is now allowing its comeback at Kodiak, Alaska.
In the late 1980's, NASA was experimenting with its next generation of space launch vehicles, known as X-33. X-33 were reusable, suborbital launch vehicles (space planes) that used single-stage-to-orbit technology. NASA cancelled the project after spending $1.2 billion to develop X-33. It was unfortunate for the X-33 program that the Cold War was ending, because shifting strategy jeopardized the Single-Stage-to-Orbit (SSTO) program within the Strategic Defense Initiative, and it was the only active program of its kind. It was active largely because one Star Wars program, Brilliant Pebbles, would rely heavily on that type of technology. NASA planned on testing its reusable vehicles by 1999 (it also planned on purchasing launch services from commercial providers rather than operating its own space transport), but all the backing for the single-stage technology that was behind NASA's plan was disappearing. The end of the Cold War and experiences with SCUDS in the Gulf War resulted in a dramatic shift in defense strategy from a focus on the Strategic Defense System to theater missile defenses. Brilliant Pebbles was put on the back burner of missile defense projects, and Congress and the Pentagon tried to delete the Single-Stage-To-Orbit program from the Defense budget. NASA historians reported that in 1992, Pat Ladner and a group of single-stage promoters envisioned the program fulfilling Air Force, NASA, and commercial missions, but it needed a new institutional home and funding. The country had a real need for a cheaper launcher, but no institution for the development of commercial launchers existed and no firm was ready to put up its own money to design and build the SSTO (Butrica & Launius, 1999).
Pat Ladner responding to concerns of Kodiak resident Carolyn Heitman at a Kodiak Chamber of Commerce luncheon, 8/22/01. Photo by S. Fritz.A Brilliant Full Circle
When Governor Hickel signed bill that created the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation in 1991, the new spaceport was planned for the Poker Flat Rocket Research Range outside Fairbanks. The bill was accompanied by a legislative grant of over $300,000 to help AADC get started, and soon the news broke that the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation had granted $700,000 to the first customer of the state's fledgling aerospace corporation--Microsat Launch Systems. Not only was Microsat getting a deal that other spaceports could never offer them, but what they also found appealing about launching from the Fairbanks site was "that there [was] no bureaucracy involved," (Thomas, "Space, at warp speed," Anchorage Daily News, 1991). A cursory glance at Microsat's business documents showed substantial Pentagon connections and plans for more than forty Star Wars contracts, including Brilliant Pebbles. In total, over seventy percent of their near-term contracts, worth at least $127 million, were military related (Ibid).
This disturbed some Alaskans, not only because the state appropriations appeared to be direct subsidies to the Department of Defense and the Strategic Defense Initiative, but also because they felt that the subsidies clearly violated Alaskan law. In 1986, an Alaskan Nuclear Freeze voter initiative had passed, requiring the Governor to conduct all state affairs in accordance with a mutual and verifiable freeze in the development, testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons. Since the Soviets had pledged to respond to Star Wars with dramatic increases in their nuclear arsenals, some Alaskans argued that the state could not legally contribute to the acceleration of the arms race by subsidizing Star Wars (SANE/Alaska, 1991).
Reportedly, Microsat had not told state officials about its defense contracts when it applied for a state grant and received part of the state contract. Tom Moyer, who had sponsored the AADC creation bill, said he only knew about communication and research satellites at Poker Flat (Thompson, 1991). However, Apollo 17 director Gene Cernan, who Treadwell (1998) later described as the man who sold the aerospace plan to the legislature and then became a AADC board member, was on the board of Microsat in 1991. By the time AADC was four months old, Microsat was "involved at almost every level." However, the man who left his job as business director in the Commerce Department to become Microsat's representative in Juneau, Jamie Parsons, said he had not been told about Microsat's defense contracts either (Thompson, 1991).
The proposal to build the spaceport at Kodiak eventually replaced the plan for Poker Flat, but not before the notoriety of that $700,000 grant to Microsat from the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation had spread. The State of Alaska, knowingly or not, had granted $700,000 of state funds to develop a rocket that, among other things, was designed to launch Star Wars Brilliant Pebbles space weapons. It was the largest grant the Foundation had ever given, and almost twice the amount of the grant that had previously held the record. In 1991, John Sibert of the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation said "if that (defense contracts) had been the whole market, we would not have funded this project," (ibid). In 1997, the Foundation gave $5 million to the AADC to match part of the $18 million in missile defense funding that Stevens had secured. To date, the Alaska Science and Technology Foundation has granted a total of almost $16 million to the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation (Lt. Gov. Ulmer, personal correspondence, 2001).
University of Alaska Chancellor Joan Wadlow reassured a Fairbanks resident who was worried about missile defense activity at Poker Flat in 1991. She wrote: "The University is not presently, nor is it likely to be involved in the so-called Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI)," (Wadlow, personal letter to J. Lyle, 9/23/91). Fairbanks anti-nuclear activists were concerned because "nuclear rockets are being developed to launch heavy military/Star Wars payloads into space" and noted that testing of said rockets would require remote launch sites, like Poker Flat (SANE/Alaska, 1991).
In 2001, NASA announced that it had resumed development of nuclear-powered rockets using single-stage-to-orbit technology. NASA "hoped the public would be less resistant to nuclear-assisted rockets now that the Bush administration is considering a return to nuclear power," (Sample, "NASA considers nuclear boosters for space rockets," New Scientist, 7/5/01). NASA didn't know whether the rockets would ever be safe enough to carry astronauts. "We'd have to do a lot more calculations on the radiation side of things," their spokesman, Adams, said. A propulsion research manager reported that "a change in public attitude towards nuclear power would take the heat off NASA," but an aeronautical engineer who works on nuclear-assisted rockets said there were "legitimate safety and environmental issues if the spacecraft were to crash during launch." Triggering the reactor in the atmosphere, after it is initially boosted with a traditional chemical rocket, could also be a problem. "The idea of deliberately releasing fission products into the atmosphere, even in negligible amounts, is going to be a very hard sell," (Ibid). Unlike previous space missions which were fueled by a lumps of plutonium, the new rockets use fission reactions.
In August 2001, the Air Force and NASA announced that the organizations were increasing their cooperative efforts to develop reusable launch vehicles "in an effort to assure the American military's dominance and control of space for national security purposes," (David, "U.S. Air Force and NASA…" Space.com, 8/29/01). NASA's Space Launch Initiative program will now be largely funded through Air Force Space Command, and NASA committed to better focus reusable launch technology in light of national security needs and in a way consistent with Space Command's primary objectives. A Space Command spokesman said that the Air Force would be far more closely involved with NASA'a Space Launch Initiative because they could not afford to lose "this battle of technological dominance," (Ibid) which includes a military perspective of NASA's X-33 program. Retired Air Force General Thomas Moorman noted that government investment is required to maintain future technology and that it was critical that the government be a more reliable customer of space products. He also reported the "good news" that a "number of steps are underway to develop a new relationship between government, academia and the commercial industry," (Ibid).
In February 2002, NASA announced its Nuclear Systems Initiative and said that it could jump-start space exploration within the decade. The George W. Bush administration's proposed budget for 2003 included, among NASA's funding, $125.5 million specifically for that program. NASA proposed to spend $950 million over five years to develop new atomic-powered generators to supply electricity for spacecraft as well as reviving the X-33 plans for nuclear propulsion (Leary, "Looking anew at nuclear power for space travel," NYTimes, 2/12/02).Circumpacific STARS
Until 2001, the Air Force with its Atmospheric Interceptor Tests had been the Kodiak Launch Complex's only customer. More of those tests are planned, but in 2001 the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command arranged for the AADC to host twenty of the US Army Strategic Target System missile tests, commonly known as the STARS program (Coordinating Draft, North Pacific Target Program E.A., 2000). These are the missiles that simulate incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles fired from Asia so that the military in the South Pacific can attempt to intercept them in mid-air with the latest missile defense technology (note of clarification: the earlier Air Force missile defense tests were drones to test radars and sensors, but not to actually attempt interception of them).
Phil Coyle, former director of operational test and evaluation for the Department of Defense, recommended that there be greater separation between launch and radar sites during tests of the national missile defense system. Previous mock ICBMs have been launched from Vandenberg Air Force base on the Californian coast and tracked from a radar 300 miles north, which does not provide ideal information on how the system would respond to a real missile from thousands of miles away. Coyle said that using the Kodiak launch site is one way to overcome that. Mock missiles could be fired either from Kodiak towards interceptor missiles launched from the Kwajalein Atoll in the western Pacific or vice-versa. Kodiak is a particularly advantageous location from which to launch the interceptor missiles, Coyle said, since it reflects the perceived real-world scenario where an enemy ICBM would arrive from Asia and a U.S. interceptor system would be based in central Alaska (Bishop, "Kodiak could host…"Fairbanks Daily News Miner, 2001). The previous testing has been, Coyle said, geographically backward (Bishop, "Pentagon revises game plan…"Fairbanks Daily News Miner, 2001).
The Kodiak Launch Complex in Nov. 2001. B. Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear power in Space, in foreground. Photo by S.Studebaker.The twenty STARS launches scheduled for Kodiak use different and more powerful missiles than the Minuteman missiles that the Air Force had been testing, and residents wanted to make sure they could read the new Environmental Assessment in time to submit comments. The AADC had promised residents of Kodiak that no radioactive materials or liquid-fueled rockets would be used at the complex, (Kizzia, Anchorage Daily News, 1998), but STARS rockets use both, with radioactive Thorium in their booster components. The solid components of the three-stage missiles land in the ocean. STARS rockets will also use a new flight trajectory directly over two native villages on Kodiak Island - Old Harbor and Akhiok. Members of the Kodiak Rocket Launch Information Group (KRLIG) claimed that, when they questioned the Army on the issue, the Army explained that they would build underground shelters for the villagers to use during blasts (Studebaker; Heitman, personal correspondence, 2001). Each rocket's first stage releases 8,000 pounds of aluminum oxide (North Pacific Targets Program(NPTP) EA, 2001). KRLIG biologists claimed that this substance could kill aquatic life in nearby streams and attracts many carcinogenic organic pollutants with which it bonds to become even more dangerous. Halon and freon, both banned by the Montreal Protocal for their ozone-depleting effects, are used in the Army rockets. They also contain fifty pounds of highly flammable magnesium and toxic and flammable hydrazine (NPTP EA, 2000). KRLIG members claim that when they asked about the fire risk this presented, AADC explained that they have a pickup truck with buckets of water to extinguish grass fires near the launch site. AADC has also, reportedly, been non-compliant about providing required information on the type of substances they are transporting, hindering the community's effective emergency planning (KRLIG member Studebaker also serves on the Kodiak Island Borough Local Emergency Planning Committee). KRLIG members claim that first stage rocket debris will fall into the ocean around the whale migration corridor, with no plans to schedule launches to avoid heavy migration times. The Army will also require a new road to be built around the launch facility and federal law requires a wider buffer around the complex.
Several members of the public in Kodiak would have liked to study the STARS project EA and submit comments on it. In fact, almost no one in Kodiak received copies of the draft STARS Environmental Assessment, though the mayor, the emergency planning commissioner, and the National Marine Fisheries agency received copies two days before the comments were due (Freed, public comment of chairperson on behalf of Kodiak Island Borough Local Emergency Planning Committee on NPTP EA, 05/08/01). The document, the Army had decided, was for agency review only--the public was not to see or comment on it. Many of these facts on the Army STARS launches were available through a National Marine Fisheries employee who shared the draft Environmental Assessment with a few people. He stayed up all night with them reading and putting together his comments, but the next day his boss refused to submit all but one of them. Risking his job, the man took the story and his comments to the local paper because, as he explained, he believes the information belongs in the public domain (Stevens, letter to editor, Kodiak Daily Mirror, 2001).
Residents of Kauai, Hawaii, thought it was incredible that so many people in Alaska had received copies of the EA at all. The Army sent 81 copies of the final EA to Alaskan addresses after it was published. The same STARS program includes testing at the Pacific Missile Range on Kauai, but the Army sent only five copies of the EA to Hawaii, and none of those to the Hawaii Office of Environmental Quality Control (Sommer, Honolulu Star Bulletin, 06/20/01). Hawaiians on the island of Kauai tried unsuccessfully in the early nineties to block a STARS program at Barking Sands missile range (Pacific Missile Range Facility) through lawsuits, charging that it was illegal and wasteful and improperly used Hawaiian lands. The Rev. Kaleo Paterson, spokesman for the Hawaii Ecumenical Coalition, pointed out that the STARS missile launch site was built at the foot of the [Nohili] dunes, which Hawaiians consider to be a sacred site. The first launch took place in August 1993, but only four of the planned 40 payloads materialized. Residents like Raymund Chuan, spokesman for the Kauai Friends of the Environment, were relieved by that and welcomed the reprieve of testing he saw with the end of the Cold War. Then the Army's STARS testing was replaced by the Navy's newest tests for Theater Ballistic Missile Defense, requiring yet another expansion of the range (Kakesako, "Kauai at odds over missile tests," Honolulu Star Bulletin, 1997).
Military officials said the Hawaiian base and range were lucky and probably would've been decommissioned if they were not suitable for missile defense tests. "Like any business, to stay in business you have to grow and change with the times. That is what Barking Sands is trying to do by bringing in the missile defense business," said Bob Mullins, ex-commander of the Pacific Missile Range Facility. Most state and local officials backed the project, as Gov. Ben Cayetano summarized: "the people on Kauai will benefit economically because of the federal money and jobs resulting from this project." Chaun questioned whether a few dozen extra jobs, mainly held by imported technicians, were "enough to sacrifice the still pristine state of Kauai and the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands." The Rev. Paterson explained a Hawaiian belief that the northern and westernmost part of any island was sacred. "It was where spirits of a dead person leaped off into the other world. Many Hawaiians buried their dead there," (Kakesako, 1997). Aware of their similar situations, Hawaiian missile defense opponents have queried the islanders in Alaska about a "circumpacific" coalition against missile defense.
Testing Kodiak's Bed
In early July 2001, the Pentagon introduced plans for the North Pacific Missile Defense Test Bed that included the proposal to build two silos for ground-based interceptor missiles at the Kodiak Launch Complex. The Kodiak facility will be used to launch the interceptors from the island in tests against mock missiles launched from California, Hawaii, or planes in the Pacific. The head of the BMDO, General Ronald Kadish, aptly summarized the story of the Kodiak site at a hearing before a House Armed Services subcommittee. He said that current test ranges limited the missile defense program and needed to be "geographically expanded." He also noted that "while facilities are somewhat austere, Kodiak Island in Alaska has been used to benefit our missile defense programs," (Bishop, "Pentagon revises game plan…" FDNM, 2001).
This new step in military activity (and apparently the mere mention of "silos") shocked many islanders, and some who had originally supported the KLC joined the opposition. Concerned residents demanded a public meeting with BMDO representatives when they learned of the planned construction. In late August 2001, three representatives of the BMDO and Space Command were in the same highschool auditorium where the AADC had introduced its spaceport plans in 1995. The BMDO gave a short presentation of the test bed proposal and Kodiak's role in it. One of Kodiak's most vocal opponents, Vicki Jo Kennedy, used to be a tour guide at the launch complex. "I knew this would be a fairy tale and it started six years ago," said Kennedy at the meeting. "If you came here with all this then, we would have run you off the island," ("Missile tests at Kodiak…" Fairbanks Daily News Miner, 08/22/01).
Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, spokesman for the BMDO, and Eric Sorrels and David Hasley of U.S. Space
Command at the August 20, 2001 town meeting in Kodiak. Photo by S. Fritz.
Lt. Col. Rick Lehner, spokesman for the BMDO, had help from David Hasley and Eric Sorrels of the US Army Space and Strategic Defense Command as the trio fielded questions, comments, pleas and insults from the approximately 250 residents who attended the question-and-answer session. The session was broadcast over local radio, and two residents called in to thank the officials for their role in defending the country. This provided the only positive feedback the military representatives received during the four-hour long meeting.
The military officials explained their lack of responsibility regarding numerous concerns by reminding islanders that the BMDO would simply be a paying customer at the Kodiak Launch Complex. Residents didn't fail to point out the irony they perceived in this situation to the federal representatives, saying that the BMDO would be paying customers at a "private, commercial" facility that had largely been paid for with federal money.
Lt. Col. Lehner reassured the audience that the BMDO would adhere to all the guidelines of the National Environmental Policy Act. Two days after the meeting, members of the Kodiak Rocket Launch Information Group learned that the Pentagon appeared to have a different plan. They came across an article circulated by Worldcatch News Network, a fisheries related news reporting service, entitled "Military may seek exemption from Endangered Species Act [and] fisheries laws," (WorldCatch, 2001). The Military Readiness sub-Committee of the House Armed Services Committee had argued that environmental stipulations were impeding military readiness. While local fishermen are bound by the dictates of the Magnuson-Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act, the military was seeking legal immunity from these laws.
Kodiak residents realized that if the Pentagon has its way, missile silo construction and launches at the Kodiak Launch Complex (and all military activity everywhere in the country) would be exempt from the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act, the National Marine Sanctuaries Act, and the Coastal Zone Management Act. The ultimate irony they saw in this was that Senator Ted Stevens' promotion of missile defense in Alaska was threatening to result in a total disregard for the Fisheries Act that Stevens co-wrote in order to sustain and enhance Alaska's commercial fishing industry. Regardless of how likely it is that the House Armed Services Committee would formally grant these exemptions, the intention behind this issue threatens to damage public trust more than any actual violation of the laws could.Epilogue
Alaska Senator Ted Stevens was instrumental in increasing the fiscal 2001 Defense budget to include $12 million more for the Kodiak Launch Complex. As for the economic diversity that the spaceport initially promised to bring to Kodiak, AADC executive director Pat Ladner began admitted years ago that the agency "may have only one or two year-round employees on Kodiak to patrol Narrow Cape and provide maintenance." Local officials, as Kodiak mayor Gary Stevens said in 1998, "realized there was not going to be a big number of jobs and benefits to the community." He also said that he still supported the project "because there is no real harm and it brings excitement and international interest to Kodiak." Stevens may not have known just how much international interest that could be. At that time, Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation director Pat Ladner stated that he wanted nothing to do with anti-missile defenses and the controversy they would bring. "That's the last thing I need," he said (Kizzia, 1998).
The first test launch from Kodiak of the STARS rocket took place on November 9, 2001. Shortly after it was launched, command and control lost communication with the rocket and were forced to destroy it. Lt. Col. Rick Lehner reported that missile pieces were scattered into the ocean between fourteen and twenty-five miles off the east coast of Kodiak Island. Residents of Kodiak were not aware of the exact time the rocket would be launched because security issues arising from the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks prompted the military to keep "mum" about the precise launch time (Clark, "Missile defense test goes awry," Fairbanks Daily News Miner, 11/10/01).
Critics of the rocket facility reported that the aborted rocket launch had made Kodiak's worst fear come true. They were incredulous that the launch had gone ahead because the weather had been very poor. Statewide news coverage of the event replayed footage of a previous launch on a bright and sunny summer day. The rocket watchdog group noted that, according to the planned trajectory of the launch, missile debris flying throughout the 70-nautical mile "Warning Zone" would land not only in Kodiak's offshore fishing grounds but possibly on the island. The rocket contained asbestos, halon, freon, and radioactive thorium, and they wondered how Kodiak fishermen were going to fare in their quest to sell organic Alaskan salmon if people knew the fish were swimming in waters contaminated by toxic and hazardous missile chemicals. The local critics felt that what truly destroyed the BMDO's accountability was the fact that almost all of the launch officials had been on the first plane off the island. By the time locals knew the launch had gone off, no one was there to answer questions.
In April of 2002, Senator Gene Therriault of Fairbanks introduced a bill into the Alaska State Legislature to repeal one of the State's statutes governing the Alaska Aerospace Development Corporation. Therriault is currently serving on AADC's Board of Directors as the non-voting member from the legislature. The Chairman of the AADC board, University of Alaska President Mark Hamilton, had just spent a week at the state capitol lobbying for university funding. Hamilton is noted for his keen ability in this arena, but the current state budget shortfall will likely result in less state money for the university. The university, as described in the previous chapter, had recently learned it could not count on some money it had expected from the Missile Defense Agency since that agency canceled its classified project at Poker Flat. Senator Therriault is also the head of the Legislative Budget and Audit Committee, which is where his Senate Bill 313 was first discussed. To be precise, other than the public comments via teleconference and the Senator Therriault's explanations in response to them, there was no discernable discussion on the bill within the committee before approval. One committee member, Ben Stevens (son of Alaska's U.S. Senator Ted Stevens), made several efforts to inform public testifiers that they were poorly informed about the real purpose of the bill.
The state statute that Senate Bill 313 would repeal is a requirement that AADC submit any proposed projects that exceed one million dollars to the Legislature for approval at a regular session of the Legislature. Its promoters claim that repealing this statute will actually result in greater legislative scrutiny of AADC's projects because federal money can come in at any time of the year. Sometimes the Legislature doesn't have all the information it needs when it is still in session to make an informed decision, and they simply sign off on a line item amount without the details. The Legislative Budget and Audit committee meets all year, and the ten-member board can scrutinize and approve multi-million dollar projects without waiting for the full Legislature to convene. Senator Therriault explained that the statute's "redundancy" is no longer warranted and that "AADC needs added flexibility to respond to its clientele," (Austerman, "SB 313 improves rocket oversight," Kodiak Daily Mirror).
Unidentified Kodiak resident protesting the KLC, 1996. Photo by Stacy Studebaker.
