NASA's sand dune solution

ANTHROPOGENIC climate change and its associated rise in sea levels could prove a significant threat to some of the world’s iconic coastal space launch sites, including Florida’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC).

NASA is building a massive artificial dune along a stretch of the coast in a bid to protect the nation’s only launch site for human missions - but many experts say that ultimately it isn’t going to be enough.

Even conservative estimates suggest the low-lying Florida peninsula can expect to experience at least 5 to 8 inches of sea level rise by the 2050s, a figure which could double or treble if global warming is not contained at current levels.

Launch Complex 39A, the historic Apollo 11 and Space Shuttle launch pad that SpaceX now leases for its Falcon Heavy rocket, is one of the most vulnerable, as the base of the pad sits only a few feet above sea level and is just a quarter mile from the coastline.

The founding fathers of the US space programme chose a barrier island to launch rockets into space for safety reasons, preferring out of control rockets to explode over the ocean rather than land. But the very quality that makes this location a safe spot for launches threatens to be its downfall.
       
This year, the pad 39A complex is estimated to face a 14 percent annual risk of flooding, a figure which is likely to rise unless additional measures are taken to protect it, according an analysis released in late 2019 by Climate Central, an international organisation researching and reporting the science and impacts of climate change.
                               
Predictions are equally uncertain for launch complex 39B, the future home of NASA’s SLS rocket which will be used to launch the first people to the Moon by 2024. The current annual flood risk, estimated at six percent, is likely to double within two decades.

It is unclear how much damage sea floods could cause to the actual launch pads but, at the minimum, rising water could isolate the complexes as inaccessible islands, also threatening support roadways and other infrastructure.

At the same time, natural barriers along the coastline are also eroding. Based on historical records and aerial photos, the beach in front of the Cape Canaveral area has thinned and moved inland by as much as 200 feet. Losses have been most severe along the stretch near pads 39A and 39B.

NASA biologist Don Dankert, technical lead for KSC’s environmental planning office, is charged with protecting the agency’s valuable launch assets. “Climate change is obviously important to the agency,” he says. “Looking into the future and how we address this with our infrastructure in our inland areas is a top priority.”

After studying various engineering solutions, Dankert and his team settled on constructing hefty inland sand dunes as a barrier between Florida’s launch pads and the encroaching ocean.

AS a result, NASA is currently using 350,000 cubic yards of sand to build a 3.2 mile long dune 17 feet high and 90 feet wide. The sand is being trucked from an inland source and is matched to the sand that is on local beaches for grain texture and size consistency. Once complete the dune will be covered with native vegetation to help maintain its integrity. 

But as global temperatures continue to climb and with forecasters warning of more frequent and stronger hurricanes, not everyone is convinced. Joseph Donoghue, an ocean sciences professor at the University of Central Florida, is assessing the effects of major storms on coastal environments at the National Center of Integrated Coastal Research.

“Sure, dunes are a good short-term solution. But the dunes are only good for as long as no major hurricanes come through,” he says. “Long-term, dunes aren’t going to do the job.”

NASA reckons the $35 million it is spending on the shoreline restoration project, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year, is money well spent. But according to Leesa Souto, Executive Director of the Marine Resources Council and Assistant Professor of Ocean Engineering at Florida Institute of Technology, sand dunes and sea walls only protect against storm surges and do not address flooding from rising groundwater.

“It's not just flooding from the ocean that we are concerned about; a rising sea level also increases pressure inland, causing the groundwater to rise,” she explains. “The launch pads are particularly vulnerable because they are out on a peninsula in the middle of the ocean between the estuary and the ocean.”

"Ground water is sea level so when sea level rises, ground water rises. So when the elevation of the land and the elevation of groundwater are the same, you have a lake," she added.

“So unless they’re going to build the launch pads on the top of the 17 foot dune they are going to be under water.”

The Jeff Bezos-led Blue Origin commercial spaceflight company, which is pumping a billion dollars into the Space Coast area as a launch base for its New Shepard rocket, is taking no chances. The company leases Launch Complex 36 and is currently building it both out and upwards. “The base of our rocket will be 50 feet above the ground, which is 20 feet above the 100 year flood plain,” says Scott Henderson, Blue Origin's vice president of test and flight operations.

Space Launch Complexes 40 and 41, which could be the site of the first commercial rocket launch of American astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS), are also at significant risk from future flooding, according to Climate Central's analysis.

United Launch Alliance (ULA), which leases space complexes 41 and 37 from the US Air Force, is not currently addressing climate change related impacts. “It becomes a real challenge of ‘what are you going to try to mitigate?’ and ‘what are you going to accept as an acceptable risk?’ So we’ve tried to balance that,” says Mark Dornseif, senior manager of engineering and infrastructure at ULA.

For an industry that routinely talks about its costs in millions, the billion dollar question remains: how viable will Kennedy Space Center be in the future? Florida’s Space Coast economy, which earns around $3 billion a year from ‘space’, is certainly banking on its success as long as possible.

But Blue Origin's Henderson envisions a time when there will be thousands of spaceports across the world and that, ultimately, Cape Canaveral may prove to have been just a starting point for human space exploration. “Today we’re constrained to coastal areas but in the long haul you need to be flexible and reliable enough to fly from lots of places," he says.
 
This is an extended version of an article first published 
by Clive Simpson on the ROOM Space Journal website.

Junk yard Shuttle

Atlantis in KSC Visitor Complex                                     Photo: Clive Simpson

Keep you eyes open in and around Florida and you never quite know what you might see. Heading back to Orlando airport the other week demanded a quick detour for the final and unexpected opportunity to photograph a Space Shuttle in a most unlikely location.

Having previously visited Atlantis in its new home at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex a few days earlier this wasn’t quite the real thing - but the marine work yard setting on Merritt Island made up for that.

Glance straight ahead along the 528 out of Cape Canaveral and you might easily have missed Inspiration reposing, as if in a junk yard awaiting scrapage, amongst yachts and boats of all sizes that were in for repair or salvage.

A sign at the entrance discouraged tourists from popping in to take photos but the owner was just locking up and seemed happy enough to make an exception for a couple of journalists with English accents.

                                                                                        Photo: Clive Simpson

The timing was almost perfect because only a few days later on 27 April - and almost five years after NASA's last Space Shuttle had landed in Florida - an orbiter returned to the runway at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC).


Inspiration, a full-scale mockup - previously on display at the now-former location of the US Astronaut Hall of Fame in Titusville - was rolled out to Kennedy's Shuttle Landing Facility where it will be rebuilt into a travelling exhibit.

 LVX System, which acquired the 37 m replica from NASA, moved Inspiration from the Hall of Fame to a work yard in January. It intends to use the Shuttle for both educational outreach and marketing.

Over the past four months, work has been done at the marine yard to bolster the orbiter’s structure and aesthetics in preparation its move at the end of April.

Inspiration was barged from the Beyel Brothers Crane and Rigging yard on Merritt Island to the turn basin opposite the 52-story-tall Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB) at KSC before being towed to the Shuttle Landing Facility.

Now parked on a concrete apron near the air traffic control tower at the midpoint of the runway, Inspiration will be further modified for its new ‘mission’ before heading out on America's waterways.

Although details are still being determined, LVX plans to prepare Inspiration so that it can travel by barge along the nation's rivers, stopping at ports where the public might otherwise never see a Space Shuttle.

LVX plans to outfit Inspiration's crew cabin and flight deck so that simulated missions can be ‘flown’ by those who visit the Shuttle on its tour. There’s life in the old girl yet!

On the beach

The Space Shuttle programme may be over and the Lighthouse Keeper back in England, now well-recovered from the effects of jet-lag after the return flight.

But before we head to pastures new there is more to tell about this part of Florida - some of the experiences that it wasn’t possible to write about in real-time during the long, frenetic days around the launch of Atlantis.

Four days after launch (12 July 2011) and it is early evening on Cocoa Beach, a stone’s throw from my temporary home at the rustic and friendly Pelican Landing Resort.

For the first time in a week the coast has seen day-long clear blue skies and, in the middle of the day at least, an almost unbearable sun.

But things have cooled off just a little by 6 pm and with a refreshing breeze off the sea it is as good a time as any to sit on the shoreline and muse a little.

The great six mile long stretch of sand disappears into the distance on both sides, a faint misty spray blurring the distant detail like some desert heat haze.

It starts in the north at Jetty Park, a park and campground area with its own sand dune and beach area, waterside picnic spots and fishing pier, all at the entrance to the busy Port Canaveral.

From Jetty Park you can watch and boats and ships go by, and across the tidal inlet you can see towards the launch towers of Cape Canaveral Air Force base, a good spot for watching unmanned launches of Atlas and Delta rockets.

The Shuttle pad itself is blocked from here by a low mound of land but if you didn’t mind joining the action a few seconds after launch then it was still a good spot to watch Shuttles climbing rapidly into the sky on their way into orbit.

There is an abundance of wildlife all around - seabirds, bottlenose dolphins, manatee and sea turtles, as well as the occasional Raccoon venturing out onto the rocks.

The loud clear whistle of the Osprey is one of coastal Florida's most characteristic sounds. Sometimes mistaken for a bald eagle (because of the white head), the Ospreys are often seen flying with a fish grasped tightly in their talons.

From my spot on the beach some four miles down from Jetty Park I am surveyed by a passing Pelican, which gracefully shadows the wave-line, seemingly without effort for such a large bird.

Just offshore more Pelicans appear to plunder a shoal of surface-feeding fish. Suddenly their wings fold and they dive-bomb into the water with a great splash, and then you see them bobbing on the water whilst devouring their catch.

It’s also time for the myriad of ‘sand spiders’ to come out of their holes in the sand. Though they have an uncanny resemblance to spiders they are actually crabs and come in all sizes and camouflaged colours, emerging sideways from the sand hole before darting back and forth as the waves roll and retreat.

The smallest look like they are floating over the fine sand. All crabs scamper at lightening speed and disappear down their hole as soon as anything moves or spooks them.

A wave rushes in and for a moment they all disappear. And then, at the sand hole near my foot, a pair of pointy black eyes pop out, flicking around to assess the landscape once more before deciding to dash here and there.

Shore view

It's 4.30 pm. The beach is not nearly so packed this afternoon, though the day is equally as nice as yesterday, and the day before, and the day before.

From my vantage point on the damp sand from the retreated tide, I can see in the distance Cape Canaveral Air Force Station and the famous black and white Canaveral lighthouse.

To the left of the lighthouse is a giant monolith, a dark block that reaches high into the sky even from this great distance.

It houses a Delta IV Heavy rocket, currently number one on the US size and power manifesto. Can’t tell whether the doors are open from this distance but inside I know there is rocket being prepared for launch later this year.

If you squint against the blue horizon you can just make out the nearby launch pad lightening-conductor towers with their distinctive cigarette-style tops.

Whilst technicians continue to work the changes on Endeavour’s pad (which you can’t see in a direct line-of-sight from the beach), NASA has confirmed it will not be considering a launch before 11 May.

Earlier this afternoon I took off to nearby Jetty Park, located at the sea entrance to Port Canaveral to see about some wildlife spotting.

The pier-cum-breakwater juts out into the Atlantic for a couple of hundred metres or so on the northern-most edge of this east coast beach.

A couple of pelicans were preening themselves on the rocks and the busy little sand birds, as I call them, were darting around searching for insects.

I sighted several sea turtles working the shallow rocky ledges, diving deeper and then popping their bald round heads above the water for a breath of air before heading down again. These apart, my foray wasn’t so successful - no dolphins, no manatee.

I’ve added a few of my ‘wildlife’ snaps to the end of this piece. All were taken at Jetty Park, except the Osprey with the fish in its claws, which I shot from near Cape Canaveral locks.

 

 

 

 

Flying across the Atlantic

Gatwick airport, 0745 am. To my chagrin the airport shopping experience is already in full swing as a I burst into departures after just about the most rapid check-in and security process ever. I beat a hasty retreat to the bustling Café Rouge with its panoramic view of the runway as a backdrop for breakfast.

I’m almost on my way. Infact, as I retrospectively write this onboard the plane, the inflight information screen shows we are heading well out over the mid-Atlantic en route to Florida. Another seven or eight hours to go before the 747 touches down in Orlando.

Most of the 316 passengers will be heading off to theme park land - a few of us will be travelling in the opposite direction towards Kennedy Space Center on the east coast where putting people into space is, for the moment at least, still for real.

This Friday afternoon (in the evening UK time) the Space Shuttle Endeavour is set to blast off on its final flight - a 16 day mission to the orbiting International Space Station.

I’ll be attending the launch as Editor of Spaceflight magazine. This is the eleventh year I’ve been in the (part-time) post but it’s just my fourth trip to cover a Shuttle launch.

Of the others, I’ve actually only witnessed one live Shuttle launch - albeit a spectacular middle of the night one. The others got postponed for various reasons, so it is by no means a guaranteed event.

I’ll be meeting up with friends and fellow journalists and photographers who do regular stuff for Spaceflight, including Ken Kremer and Dwayne Day from the States, Joel Powell from Canada, and Gerard van de Haar and Rudolf van Beest from the Netherlands. We should have it covered between us!

My nine hour flight between London and the east coast of America is about as good as it gets at present for those of us confined to travelling the globe at heights of 35,000 feet in modern jet liners.

But when the engines of Endeavour ignite on the launch pad at 3.47 pm on Friday afternoon (8.47 pm UK time) the six men onboard will be catapulted into orbit inside just nine minutes.

In that first orbit they may very well fly across the southern part of the UK and, if that coincides with a clear sky, the orbiter can be seen with the naked eye tracking through the heavens as a bright swiftly moving ‘star’, with the just-separated external fuel tank trailing behind.

In that case, the Atlantic crossing for Endeavour will have taken a mere 20 minutes - which kind of puts my own trans-Atlantic journey into a little more perspective.