From: RSchatte@aol.com {Rebecca Keith]
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 1998 19:14:02 EST
Fwd Date: Sun, 22 Feb 1998 03:51:35 -0500
Subject: Re: Rocket Stirs Ruckus in Puerto Rico
From: AOLNews@aol.com
Subject: Rocket Stirs Ruckus in Puerto Rico
Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 03:48:33 EST
Rocket Stirs Ruckus in Puerto Rico
.c The Associated Press
By JAMES ANDERSON
TORTUGUERO, Puerto Rico (AP) - A small NASA project to study the
ionosphere above Puerto Rico has become a big public relations
mission for scientists trying to convince skeptical islanders
that there is no danger.
Hundreds of people have protested the mission to launch 11
rockets, most filled with chemicals. Two U.S. lawmakers asked
NASA to postpone the project, and a local senator even introduced
a bill to outlaw toying with the atmosphere above the Caribbean
island.
Protesters shouting ``NASA, go home!'' tried to block access to
the Tortuguero launch pad Monday night before police stepped in.
Demonstrators pounded on a car leaving the launch pad, spitting
on its windows. Others vowed to paddle kayaks into a coastal
safety zone near the launch site.
Scientists from the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration, private universities and the Goddard Space Flight
Center say they've spent as much time trying to ease fears as
they have on science.
``If you get one or two science (questions) here you're doing
well,'' said Miguel Larsen, a Clemson University physicist who is
supervising the first launches from the small pad 30 miles west
of San Juan.
Set to run into April, the Coqui II project will study turbulence
in the ionosphere that can interfere with satellite
communications and even produce wrong Global Positioning System
readings.
Rockets launched from Tortuguero will release the chemical
trimethylaluminum inside a thin, electrified layer of the
ionosphere about 60 miles above the Earth's surface.
The chemicals will slowly burn, creating a luminous cloud in the
night sky. The nearby Arecibo Observatory will train its radar on
the cloud to pick up its chemical properties and track its
movements, Larsen said.
The 40-foot rockets are supposed to splash down in the Atlantic
Ocean at least 60 miles off the coast. That hasn't appeased
activists who say NASA flouted local law by failing to prepare an
environmental impact statement.
The launch pad, they note, is surrounded by Tortuguero Lagoon, a
nature sanctuary itself surrounded by the town of Vega Baja,
population 60,000.
They fear contamination from lead packed into each rocket - or
worse, a misfire that could ignite the trimethylaluminum.
NASA scientists say hundreds of similar launches have gone off
without a hitch - including a 1992 Puerto Rico mission dubbed
Coqui, after an indigenous tree frog. Since Coqui II differs
little from Coqui I, a new environmental impact study isn't
necessary, they say.
The rockets, they add, have a 97 percent success rate.
``The 3 percent (failure rate) is too much, too risky in such a
crowded area,'' said Jose Escoda, a member of the Committee
Against Environmental Experiments, a coalition of environmental
and activist groups.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Jose Fuste denied their request
for a temporary injunction.
Two members of the House of Representatives with strong Puerto
Rico ties, Democrats Luis Gutierrez of Illinois and Nydia
Velazquez of New York, urged NASA administrator Daniel Goldin to
postpone the launches.
In Puerto Rico, Senator Ruben Barrios proposed legislation to
``prohibit experiments that alter the electrical and magnetic
properties of the ionosphere.'' The island's bar association,
meanwhile, suggested the agency take its launches elsewhere.
Scientists say Puerto Rico, with its Arecibo Observatory, is
ideal for studying the atmospheric phenomenon and have appeared
on talk shows and visited schools to plead their case.
``This is very unusual,'' Larsen said of the protests.
AP-NY-02-20-98 0345EST
Copyright 1997 The Associated Press. The information contained
in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten
or otherwise distributed without prior written authority of The
Associated Press.
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