John Conger

Your turn

“The overriding sensation I got looking at the earth,” said Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins 50 years ago from lunar orbit, “was my God, that little thing is so fragile out there.”

He was right. Half a century later, accelerating climate change is threatening our health, our communities, and even our national security. Florida has been on the front lines of extreme weather problems. This year, the Air Force identified Patrick Air Force Base as one of the installations most vulnerable to climate change.

Florida’s Space Coast and the space program are in danger. Much of the growing risk to our region comes from an uptick in dangerous storms that is fueled by warming seas. A near-miss by Hurricane Matthew in 2016 caused millions of dollars of damage at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, and triggered evacuations at Cape Canaveral’s Air Force Station.

When Hurricane Irma struck the following year, it forced the Kennedy Space Center to close. The storm even halted a rocket launch in California, when Florida-based crews were forced to come back to protect their homes. This spring saw the worst hailstorms ever recorded in Brevard County, pummeling Cape Canaveral and the Space Coast.

Meanwhile, storm surges and rising sea levels are threatening billions of dollars worth of rocket-launching infrastructure. When Hurricane Sandy washed away nearby protective dunes, it cost millions of tax dollars to restore.

The launch pads that sent Apollo astronauts into space stand less than 10 feet above sea level. Pieces of Complex 34, where Apollo 7 was launched, are disintegrating and tumbling out to sea. “If you look at an aerial photograph, there’s not much land between the ocean and those launch pads,” says Don Dankert with the Kennedy Space Center.

These launch sites are also critical to NASA’s next generation of human space flight and private-sector initiatives by companies like SpaceX and United Launch Alliance. And for Space Coast communities still recovering from the closing of the space shuttle program, climate change that affects the space program also deals a blow to local business stability.

Our changing climate is also threatening American military installations and personnel around the country, including many of Florida’s 21 bases, more than half of which are near the coast. Many of these Florida installations are on a new Defense Department list of facilities most threatened by flooding, drought and wildfires aggravated by climate change.

That list of threatened installations includes Patrick AFB, down the road from the Kennedy Space Flight Center, where the 45th Space Wing manages the launch of critical military intelligence satellites. The Air Force Technical Applications Center based at Patrick monitors global compliance with nuclear treaties. The base also hosts the only rescue wing in the Air Force Reserve, along with a support facility for military helicopters. Another wing helps foreign countries fight narcotics criminals.

Patrick AFB is already dealing with dangers aggravated by accelerating climate change. Hurricane Irma cut off the base’s power and water, damaged nearly half the base’s facilities and almost all of its housing, and forced the postponement of two rocket launches. And Hurricane Michael nearly devastated the base fall: “It is only by grace and a slight turn in Matthew’s path that our base and our barrier island homes were not destroyed or covered in seven feet of water,” wrote Brigadier General Wayne Monteith.

In fact, six of the Air Force’s 10 most endangered bases are in Florida. That list includes Tyndall AFB in the Panhandle, which was hammered by Hurricane Michael’s 160-mph winds, which snapped trees in half last year and damaged or destroyed nearly 700 buildings, forcing 11,000 people to flee. Nearly half of Tyndall’s F-22 fighters were grounded for maintenance, and every one of them was damaged.

The Apollo Program was a national security priority. It showed the world what American technology, ingenuity and grit could accomplish. Now, with military bases like Patrick AFB threatened by climate change, today’s national security challenge is to rekindle the kind of commitment that took us to the moon — to keep us safe here on earth.

John Conger, director of the nonpartisan Center for Climate and Security, served as acting assistant secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations and Environment.