Do You Believe Environmentalists Or The CEO Looking To Make Millions?

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On September 24, Bruce Gagnon and I gave a talk at Maine's big Common Ground Fair on the proposal to build a rocket launch site off the coast of Maine at Steuben. Bruce coordinates an international organization paying attention to the militarization of space for the last several decades, the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space,  and understands the context for the proposal to build a rocket launch site near Acadia National Park.

Although our 9am talk was sparsely attended we got none other than Sascha Deri himself, CEO of bluShift Aerospace, who interrupted me to claim that I was sharing false information. Having taught high school for years, I did not allow Deri to derail my presentation; but he and others in the audience participated in a lively Q & A session after my remarks. (Video of the entire presentation including the disruption is being processed and will be available later this week.)

Deri's most amazing revelation in response to Gagnon's question about his funding sources: bluShift Aerospace has taken money from the U.S. Space Force! Remember that the next time you see or hear claims that a rocket launch site in Maine would only be used for research and educational purposes, not for military payloads.

Banner by Cynthia Howard

We hung our banners on the outside of the Social & Political Action tents at the invitation of a fair official, and then did some more outreach work with organizations like Dark Sky, WERU, and Community Water Justice.

Original banner design by Elizabeth Olbert

The following day Donovan Lynch of NewsCenterMaine called me for an interview about opposition to the plan to launch 30+ rockets each summer off the coast of Steuben, rockets that are as tall as a mature White Pine. He also interviewed Deri and Steuben-based seaweed harvester Larch Hanson about environmental concerns: "Downeast rocket launch site promises industry boom, worrying environmentalists."

Screenshot showing Kenny Cole's climate collapse-themed print "Last Run" in the background

Included in his report was the news that bluShift is seeking FAA approval, and a prediction that two years from now rocket launches might commence.

Who are you inclined to believe about probable environmental harms of the launch site project: the CEO looking to make millions, environmentalists who live in Maine, or Gagnon with extensive knowledge of the effects of rocket launch sites all over the planet? 

You can read Bruce Gagnon's blog post about our talk at the fair here.

For more information and to sign up for updates, visit our website NoToxicRockets4ME.org.

*To order one of the cool "Don't take the peace out of space" hoodies we're wearing in the photo at the top, visit: Global Network's store at Bonfire.com. Kudos to the British GN team for this awesome design!

Elephant In The Climate Room: Rocket Launches

As many readers of this blog know, I've spent years collecting research and reporting on the climate harms of militarism. When I began this was an obscure perspective shared by few; it is now mainstream in climate movements (as long as they are not controlled by the Democratic Party, that is).

Sept. 17, 2023, New York City. WW PHOTO: Monica Moorehead 
Source: Workers World "Mass march targets Biden for an 'End to fossil fuels'"  

So it is gratifying to see this fact of modern life represented at last weekend's big climate march in New York City.

Sept. 17, 2023, New York City. WW PHOTO: Monica Moorehead 
Source: Workers World 

Other points of view also trend in that direction.

Sept. 17, 2023, New York City. WW PHOTO: Marsha Goldberg
Source: Workers World

If capitalism is the root cause of rapidly warming oceans and extreme weather events, then the wars that are necessary to sustain capitalism are implicated.

But what about war in space, which is already well underway even if few realize it? The proliferation of rocket launches in recent years and the accompanying environmental damage are almost never mentioned in reporting on either space topics or military topics.

This coming weekend I'll attend Maine's biggest annual green lifestyle event, the Common Ground Fair. It draws thousands from all over the region for a "celebration of country living" sponsored by the Maine Organic Farmers & Gardeners Association.

On Sunday morning in the political and social action tent a group of us will update fairgoers on plans to build a rocket launch site on the coast of Maine. Steuben is within sight of Acadia National Park, and the floating launch pad proposed would sit amid lobster fishing and seaweed harvesting activities already generating jobs and providing sustenance for the last several decades.

The town of Steuben is outlined in red. The proposed launch site would float just off the coast.

The plan is for up to 30 launches each year between Memorial Day and Labor Day of rockets roughly the height of a mature White Pine. 

Noise from tests of the proposed engine developed by blueShift Aerospace in Brunswick is so loud that parents report their child woke up frightened and crying after hearing it in his sleep. Toxic fallout from rocket launches reaches as high as the stratosphere, where soot particles linger and damage ozone. Toxic fallout from rocket launches in other states has polluted wetlands, breeding grounds, and beaches. And when rocket launches fail -- as they often do -- forests burn and areas several miles wide are littered with debris like concrete.

All rocket site construction involves toxic substances, including the PFAS foam used for fire fighting and stored in vast quantities on site until it may be needed. And when rockets and satellites fall from the sky, they disintegrate into a chemical soup that then falls to Earth. Mass deaths of birds and other animals have been observed at rocket launch sites in other states.

Maine was once considered Vacationland because of its deep forests, clean water, beautiful shoreline, and abundance of foods like lobsters, trout, and clams.

Although organized lobster fishermen in Jonesport blocked the construction of the toxic launch site in their fishing grounds, Steuben has not been so lucky. Resident Larch Hanson is ready to sue blueShift's CEO for trampling on the democratic process and putting his seaweed harvesting business at risk. The town government of Steuben has squelched discussion of the rocket launch site plan and silenced critics, according to Hanson.

It's worth noting that a bill rushed through supposedly as "emergency" legislation and passed under the gavel (i.e. without a roll call vote) established a private-public partnership called the Maine Space Corporation to support just this kind of project. So undemocratic methods are a signature of bringing rocket launches to Vacationland.

SOURCE: The Independent "Fire at SpaceX launch site burns 68 acres at protected refuge, killing wildlife"

But isn't space cool? you may ask. And educational?

All space programs are inherently military in nature, no matter what NASA or the University of Maine tell you. Every rocket launch site built on other pristine coasts such as Kodiak, Alaska or Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand was sold to local residents as non-military but once built has been used extensively and repeatedly to launch military satellites. (More details on that here.)

As a retired educator, I know STEM fans will enthuse about how much science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education will be advanced by projects such as this one. STEM educators in Australia are currently excited about how middle school students will be involved in projects connected to nuclear submarines the U.S. is forcing on them despite considerable pushback from the public. 

STEM can be a force for good, but not when it's used as a cover up for militarizing education and other public resources.

I have been astonished at the lack of interest among environmentalists who I might have expected would oppose building a rocket launch site on the Maine coast. No doubt it's partly attributable to the slavish reprinting of bluShift press releases as "news" in corporate media. 

I'm hopeful that we can raise some awareness of this issue at the Common Ground Fair this weekend. 

Destroying The Ozone Layer, One Rocket Launch At A Time

Sharing a guest post today by a long time activist around the environmental threats of militarism. (Images added.) Newspapers local to Vandenberg SFB didn't want to publish this fine op-ed, preferring instead to regurgitate government and corporate press releases that boost militarized space programs.

Vandenberg Space Programs Threaten Santa Barbara

by Nina Beety

 Why is the ozone layer deteriorating despite international action such as the ban on CFCs? The misleading green and blue on NASA’s maps actually signifies low ozone.

The aerospace industry is a major factor. Dallas et al (2020): [O]zone depletion is one of the largest environmental concerns surrounding rocket launches from Earth.” NASA discovered in 2007 that UV-C and UV-B were already reaching the Earth but failed to act. UV radiation is having lethal effects on species now.

Rockets destroy ozone. Rocket emissions from the four principal fuel types “cause prompt and deep ozone loss (approaching 100%) in the immediate plume wake, caused by the radical emissions, over areas of hundreds of square miles lasting several days after launch. These stratospheric ‘‘ozone mini-holes’’ have been well observed in situ by high altitude aircraft plume sampling campaigns.”(Ross et al, 2009) Radicals are oxides of hydrogen, nitrogen, bromine, and chlorine. “Stratospheric ozone levels are controlled by catalytic chemical reactions driven by only trace amounts of reactive gases and particles…A single radical molecule emitted into the stratosphere, for example, can destroy up to ~10⁵ [100,000] ozone molecules before being deactivated and transported out of the stratosphere. ..[D]irect injection into the stratosphere over a limited area (a rocket plume, for example) will cause a prompt, localized, ozone ‘‘hole.’’

Vandenberg is damaging the ozone layer locally over Santa Barbara County now. Yet the Coastal Commission in June quietly approved SpaceX’s expansion there to 36 launches per year, and in September, will likely approve a new Phantom Space Company space complex at Vandenberg and allow 48 rocket launches per year. That’s 1.5 launches per week, and more projects are coming. Commission staff claim their hands are tied.

The shockwave of de-orbiting debris, satellites, and rockets creates nitric oxide which also destroys ozone.

Further, the sun makes ozone and replenishes the ozone layer in the stratosphere, but rocket pollutants there, including exhaust, water vapor, soot, and alumina, block the sun’s rays from repairing the ozone layer. And those rocket byproducts accumulate with every launch, persisting for up to three years before falling out.

Researchers including Martin Ross, Darin Toohey, and James Vedda have repeatedly warned the industry that public awareness could curtail rocket launches.

The long-lived aerospace pollution also acts like an insulating blanket, trapping Earth’s natural and human-made heat from venting into space. This will cause planetary warming and destabilize the climate.

Other serious problems exist. Aerospace pollution and explosions contaminate land, air, water, and ocean, harming wildlife. Nuclear spacecraft are being developed. Orbital congestion has created collision risks. And when rockets and satellites de-orbit, they burn and disintegrate into dust, gases, and flaming debris that fall down; the FCC proposes a 1 in 10,000 casualty risk from fall-out as “acceptable”.

Results of a SpaceX launch fail that caused a forest fire in Texas

Satellite systems also increase RF-EMF radiation exposure globally, damaging health and disrupting wildlife’s ability to navigate by Earth’s natural EMF fields. Bees, insects, and birds are particularly vulnerable. The U.S. Department of Interior warned in 2014 about this radiation’s devastating impacts to birds, and in 2020, a New Mexico 5G “live fire” drill by SpaceX and the military may have killed up to several million birds in the region. Emissions just discovered from SpaceX equipment may also interfere with the magnetosphere and Earth’s natural electric circuit, leading to extreme weather.

Federal and state legislators ignore this toxic reality.

In 2020, there were 2000 satellites total in the sky. By 2021, the number rose to 4800, the FCC approved 17,270 low earth orbit (LEO) satellites, with 65,912 more applications pending, while governments and private companies planned an additional 30,947+ (Firstenberg, 2022). More are coming. These numbers don’t include medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites or rockets into space.

LEOs are short-lived, needing frequent replacement. Science author Arthur Firstenberg: “In 2021, there were 146 orbital rocket launches to put 1,800 satellites into space. At that rate, to maintain and continually replace 100,000 low-earth-orbit satellites, which have a lifespan of five years, would require more than 1,600 rocket launches per year, or more than four every day, forever into the future.”  Aleksandr Dunayev of the Russian Space Agency said in 1991: “About 300 launches of the [space] shuttle each year would be a catastrophe, and the ozone layer would be completely destroyed.”

This is a worldwide problem. There is no environmental oversight. That is unacceptable.

It’s long past time to strip back the curtain and expose the aerospace industry, including space tourism and military programs. Those who want to stop climate change and protect the ozone layer and the Earth must take action.

More information:

freethesky.org

safetechinternational.org

space4peace.org

bbilan.org/hhtisatellites

Lucky Me, Unlucky Oceans

Two lucky things happened yesterday at Koohan Paik-Mander's talk in Brunswick: she presented me with a copy of Pentagon, Climate Change, and War by Neta Crawford, inscribed by the author who she had just been on retreat with and 2) a seaweed harvester I've corresponded with, Larch Hanson, showed up. His timing was impeccable as I'm just preparing for a talk next month against a proposed rocket launch site on the Maine coast adjacent to Acadia National Park. 

Larch and his partner Nina Crocker had come quite a ways to hear Koohan and they were not disappointed.

I suppose it was three lucky things, actually, because Koohan's talk was so good. I'd heard a version of it before when we worked together on a COP26 People's Forum webinar about climate and militarism, but the in-person wisdom and additional information were  tremendously thought-provoking.

Militarization of the oceans is no joke, is well underway, and creates wholesale slaughter of life forms -- like the ocean mammals who seem in many ways wiser than humans. By killing off whales or coral reefs, the war machine may actually kill off life on the planet by interfering with the ocean's basic functions e.g. its ability to sequester large amounts of carbon dioxide. 

And as we know, the heavens are now full of the satellites that are integral to modern weapons systems. Koohan described how every archipelago in the Pacific is infested with U.S. military installations, many brand new, and how the Pentagon is rapidly filling the oceans with sonar devices that will link up to satellites in order to threaten nuclear war on China. (Check out this radio interview  Koohan did with anti-nuclear activist Bob Anderson in New Mexico recently.)

A slide she shared mapped corporate entities' plans to put satellites overhead for the next five years:

What could go wrong?

As to why meeting Larch was so lucky, he's someone I've been needing and wanting to work with because he's from the town being targeted for a rocket launch site. As was discussed in the Q&A at Koohan's talk, launch sites all over the planet are part of the Pentagon's plan for full spectrum dominance. From New Zealand to Kodiak, Alaska residents experience the noise, pollution, and habitat destruction of rocket launches that were never going to be for military purposes but then somehow always are used for military purposes.

Here's an excerpt from the handout Larch shared with us about Steuben, Maine:

I look forward to generating more resistance to using the Maine coast for rocket launches. Bruce Gagnon and I will be speaking at the Common Ground Fair on Sunday September 24 at 9am and we've invited Larch to consider joining us as a co-presenter.

With islands around the northern hemisphere burning in the hottest summer yet, rocket launches from the rapidly warming waters off Maine are the next-to-last thing we need. 

WW3 with a nuclear-armed nation is the literal last thing we need and the furthest thing from lucky that I can imagine.

Koohan left us with some relevant lines from Alan Ginsburg's epic poem "Howl":

Moloch the vast stone of war! Moloch the stunned governments! 

Moloch whose mind is pure machinery! Moloch whose blood is running money! Moloch whose fingers are ten armies! Moloch whose breast is a cannibal dynamo! Moloch whose ear is a smoking tomb!

Maine Child Woken By Rocket Test In Brunswick, Many More To Come

Source: Popular Mechanics "How The Noise Of Big Rockets Breaks Apart Buildings"

A friend of mine received an email from a friend of his in Brunswick, Maine this week:

Did you hear this last night? I thought of you when my 8 year old came running into my room terrified and crying after they woke him up.

https://www.wmtw.com/article/maine-company-successfully-test-fires-rocket/41347930

If you can imagine being 8 years old again, you are probably aware of the threat of war breaking out. (At least I was at that age.) Even if you are not, a terribly loud industrial sound -- loud enough to wake you up -- could send you running in tears to your parents to ask them what's going on. 

The parents were alarmed by the loud noise also, but didn't find out until the following day that it was bluShift testing one of the rockets it intends to launch from the Maine coast at Steuben, near Acadia National Park. The company's headquarters, however, is in Brunswick, a heavily populated area where they plan several more tests.

Explosion rocks SpaceX test launch site during test"

Brunswick already gets hit hard by excessive noise every time a military air show comes to town. Last time the Blue Angels performed, a sonic boom cracked the sliding glass doors of another friend of mine, a woman in her 90's. Her daughter contacted the Brunswick Landing folks who hosted the airshow, but no compensation for the damage was offered.

I continue to be mystified about two things:

• What democratic process was used in Steuben to determine that rocket launches would be allowed there? Or in Brunswick to determine if the public wants to endure this level of noise pollution?

• When will environmental groups and activists in Maine wake up to the environmental harms of a rocket launch site on the coast? BluShift plans up to 35 launches per year from the Steuben site! I've reached out to Sierra Club of Maine, 350 Maine, and several other groups. But if they are beholden to the Democratic Party, they will likely continue to look the other way.

According to her recent newsletter to constituents, Brunswick's Senator Mattie Daughtry (a Democrat) is full of self-congratulation over her authorship of this bill. Clearly she is representing moneyed interests in Maine, not schoolchildren who deserve not to be terrified awake on a school night.

Wilson's Plover with debris from SpaceX operations in Boca Chica, Texas. Image credit: Coastal Bend Bays & Estuaries Program (CBBEP)

Those of us in Maine who are paying attention have a website, NoToxicRockets4ME.org, where you can find out more about this environmental issue plus the experiences of other places (Kodiak, New Zealand) where rocket launch sites have been built. Locals are promised that what they will get in return for the industrialization of a pristine coastal spot is jobs (which don't materialize) and no military use (which does materialize).

Steuben, Maine is outlined in red

I hope Mainers wake up before campers in Acadia are awakened by noise disrupting children and wildlife in what was once a peaceful spot.

Who Needs Consent Of The Governed When There Are Profits To Be Made? Maine's Rocket Launch Bill

Rocket launch site built at public expense in Kodiak, Alaska.

A local law with far reaching consequences snuck across the finish line this week in my state. The bill created a Maine Space Corporation, defined as a public-private partnership to facilitate establishing rocket launch sites in Vacationland. It was passed under the gavel i.e. without a roll call vote in the House, and will undoubtedly receive the governor's signature as Janet Mills, a neoliberal Democrat, is a consistent cheerleader for corporate looting of public resources.

Why Maine? Most types of orbit require launch sites nearer the equator, but polar orbits need launching nearer the poles. A local space watcher theorizes that the Pentagon is promoting the construction of many "private" launch sites at the expense of others, hoping to drive down the cost of paying to use them for military launches by creating competition. 

Certainly, rocket launch sites are proliferating all over the planet.

A group of us collaborated to ferret out the details of a bill that was rushed through the public hearing process of the IDEA legislative committee. That event was successfully managed to hear from those who plan to profit from the bill but a dismal failure at hearing from actual Maine taxpayers ("no one testified against the bill!" gloated supporters). Considering not a single article or television news story on the bill appeared until after the public hearing, those of us who would have testified about objections didn't know about it. We did of course then submit written testimony detailing our objections (which testimony you can read here).

During work sessions in committee, the bill received no fiscal note i.e. identification of expected costs to the public. One committee member reported the group was told that they would have to pass the bill to learn the eventual costs, another that the price tag would likely be $90 million.

 Two competing amendments further muddied the water as the bill passed out of committee with a divided report, two members voting no on any version and some voting "ought to pass" contingent upon one or the other of the amendments.

The amendment that was eventually adopted contains this gem of wholesale looting of public resources for private profits, couched of course in the impentrable language of bureaucratic fascism:

"removes the prohibition of public officials, members of the board of directors or employees of the corporation from acquiring or holding a direct or indirect financial or personal interest in a corporation activity, a corporation property or a contract or proposed contract in connection with a corporation activity."

My husband called to leave a message with our senator on the morning we had heard that the bill would be taken up after passing with no roll call vote in the House. According to the Senate office in Augusta, it had already passed the previous night.

In an email our senator, Brad Farrin, (one of 7 who voted no) commented:

I agree with your assessment of LD 1923 as many bills during this “emergency “ session are being rushed through without proper hearings and debate.

In addition to our website NoToxicRockets4ME, here is the one-pager we prepared for citizen lobbying efforts in advance of its passage:

"Explosion rocks SpaceX test launch site in Florida during test""

You might think that the state's big environmental organizations would have opposed this bill, but you would need to ask yourself first if they take money from the Democratic Party. You might also ask yourself why these organizations nationally have been so ineffectual in halting the extraction activities that are hastening us to climate chaos whether D's or R's are in control of the White House and Congress. (Hint: if it involves pushing back on the military, fugedaboudit.)

The only group successful at opposing the plan for rocket launches from the Maine coast was the lobster fishing community of tiny Jonesport. They rallied around and got a moratorium in place as one of the originators of the bill made plans to launch from an island smack dab in the middle of their fishing grounds. The rocket profiteer eventually dropped plans saying the public were misinformed but so stubborn that he'll look for a site in Florida instead.

Is the consent of the governed needed to put a good appearance on things? 

NIMBY efforts would lead us to say so, but the way LD 1923 was bum rushed through the legislative process suggests otherwise. This year Maine's governor has vetoed a slew of bills strongly supported by the people who voted for her, but she'll no doubt sign this one at the behest of her corporate sponsors.

She's counting on the fact that most in Maine will vote for her anyway, because the Republican is so awful.

Democrats may continue misconstruing that as "having the people's support," but my reading of history tends to suggest otherwise.

A staggering inflation rate for food and fuel, and no universal healthcare despite a ongoing pandemic, is what national Democratic leadership is offering up. 

Maybe the ruling class needs to keep building weapons while children go to bed hungry because they actually do know what happened to regimes that lost the consent of those they governed?