NASA Wallops takes step toward manned space flights

One small step at NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility could turn into one giant leap for the facility’s commercial aspirations.

Wallops officials say they will study the potential environmental consequences of landing reusable booster rockets and manned spacecraft at the Accomack County space center.

Such a review is a regulatory must if the facility is to host either program, said Bruce Underwood, Wallops’ deputy director. There are no imminent plans to land spacecraft of any kind at the facility, but several government agencies and private space companies have expressed interest in landing craft there over the past decade.

Last year, a representative of Bigelow Aerospace publicly signaled the company’s interest in conducting manned space flights at Wallops.

For now, the motivation is largely political, though.

Del. Chris Adams, R-37B-Wicomico, and Sen. Jim Mathias, D-38-Worcester, sponsored bills in each chamber during the spring session to throw their collective weight behind a letter to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden.

“We respectfully urge the preparation of the requested EIS (environmental impact statement) to foster the opportunity of sustaining and growing the economic prosperity the NASA WFF (Wallops Flight Facility) can bring within Maryland and Virginia,” Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller and House Speaker Michael Busch said in the letter dated April 20.

A similar measure passed the Virginia House unanimously but stalled in the Senate.

Nevertheless, the point was made, Underwood said. The facility’s staff had considered incorporating the landing and manned-flight proposals into a site-wide environmental impact statement that’s been underway since 2011, but it had remained outside of the review.

“We said, ‘Well, gee, if the states are going to ask for them, most definitely we should add that in,’” Underwood said.

The center’s last overall environmental review was conducted in 2005. But much has changed since then, not only at the facility but within the space industry.

Proponents of landing rockets at Wallops fear that the center, one of four U.S. sites licensed to launch orbital spacecraft, may fall behind its competitors. The biggest threat: Cape Canaveral, Florida.

An environmental impact study was commissioned in January to study a proposal to land up to a dozen rockets a year at Cape Canaveral. In April, SpaceX, a California-based space flight contractor, launched a rocket from the facility and tried landing it on a ship in the Atlantic Ocean, but it landed too hard to survive.

Advocates for reusable rockets say they would considerably cut the costs of space missions. They envision such flights taking off by the end of the decade.

Jack Kennedy, a member of the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority, pushed the Maryland and Virginia legislatures to support the change to the environmental review.

“We are at the dawn of the age of reusability,” said Kennedy, the clerk of the circuit court in Wise County and a former state lawmaker. “It’s like reusing a jet going from one coast of the country to the other. The same thing could happen with launch craft.”

The Wallops Island Regional Alliance, a group of 300 businesses that supports the facility’s growth, is in favor of studying the possibility of landing reusable rockets there, said the group’s chair, Peter Bale. It would provide another opportunity for the facility to grow and give the space industry an alternative to Cape Canaveral on the East Coast, he added.

The review will help determine whether landing rockets at Wallops can overcome a host of theoretical hurdles, Underwood said. The facility will have to find out whether the rockets would pose an environmental threat to the sensitive lands on the Eastern Shore of Virginia’s coast.

Wallops officials also are concerned about the safety of nearby residents, he said. The facility discontinued launches of large balloons used in science experiments after one crashed in the middle of Route 13 in 1998.

The environmental impact statement is expected to be finished in about a year. But even then, officials won’t have a full picture of the possible effects of a reusable rocket program, Underwood said. That’s because each rocket is different and will require a separate inquiry to determine its fallout.

Kennedy remains optimistic that his dream will become a reality in Virginia.

“The only day I will be happy is when we land the first reusable vehicle in Accomack County,” he said. “And the day will come.”

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