[CPEO-MEF] Alaskan Scud launches cancelled

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

The original of this article appeared in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner,
January 26, 2002

Little Doubt: UA Planned Scud Launches 


By DAN O'NEILL 

Government documents leave little doubt that the Pentagon and the
University of Alaska's Geophysical Institute intended to use Poker Flat
Research Range to launch captured or otherwise-acquired Scud missiles
into the Brooks Range.

Citing restrictions imposed by the Pentagon's Ballistic Missile Defense
Organization (BMDO), Poker Flat range manager Greg Walker wouldn't
confirm or deny that Scuds were to fly from the university's auroral
research facility in a pair of classified launches scheduled for April.
But Walker does say that the launches won't occur after all.

It's the first time in the range's 30-plus year history that the
identity of a rocket has been kept secret. In another unusual move
apparently intended to thwart journalistic inquiry into the project, the
university restricted access to the normally-available proposal that
sought $1.5 million federal dollars for the two classified launches. Nor
was the public allowed to inspect the BMDO's draft environmental assessment.

Through back channels, I obtained these documents, and they are
illuminating. For example, Poker Flat and the Pentagon didn't hope to
launch just two of these unnamed "liquid-fueled" rockets, as Poker Flat
was saying, but up to 20 over five years. 

...


For the entire article, see
http://www.nonukesnorth.net/ONeillscolumns.htm#jan26

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 222B View St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
lsiegel@cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org