HOUSTON, we’ll have a problem. The effects of climate change could mean rocket launch sites will soon be underwater, NASA has warned.

The space agency has launch pads and research centres dotted along the US coast, and more than two-thirds of its infrastructure is at elevations that are within 5 metres of sea level. This is because launching near the ocean is much safer than over land.

But their proximity to the water has put many sites at risk of flooding due to rising seas. “Some are more at risk than others,” said NASA climatologist Cynthia Rosenzweig in a recent NASA report. “But sea level rise is a very real challenge for all of the centres along the coast.”

Models suggest that sea levels at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the launch site for the moon landings and countless space shuttle missions, will rise by as much as 20 centimetres by the 2050s – or triple that if ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica continue to melt.


NASA plans to redesign or move vulnerable buildings and improve sea defences to hold back the rising tides. But eventually, some launch sites may have to be abandoned.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Soggy rockets”