Asri-unix.994
net.space
utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:C70:sri-unix!TAW@SU-AI
Fri Mar 12 11:06:11 1982
Private Enterprise
n008 0632 12 Mar 82
BC-SATELLITES(COX)
SATELLITES COULD BRING JOBS TO HAWAII
By SCOTT C.S. STONE
c. 1982 Cox News Service
SOUTH POINT, Hawaii - On this southernmost tip of the United States,
where the Polynesian discoverers of Hawaii probably first stepped
ashore, the first U.S. commercial satellites are to be launched by
private enterprise.
Known to local residents as Ka Lae, South Point formerly was the
site of a NASA tracking station. Today it is grazing land for cattle,
a favorite launching site for fishing boats, and likely a place of
great historic value to Hawaii.
The mayor of the island of Hawaii, Herbert Matayoshi, has vowed to
protect whatever historic sites are yet to be found, but at the same
time welcomes the satellite enterprise which, he believes, will be an
asset on an island suffering from high unemployment and slumping
sugar and tourism industries.
The Houston firm of Space Services, Inc., of America has been
negotiating with the state's Department of Planning and Economic
Development as well as the mayor of Hawaii Island and other
officials. If negotiations succeed, the firm could be launching
anywhere from 2 to 12 satellites a year by 1985. The satellites would
provide customers with weather information and communications
channels.
South Point was selected because it is the U.S. site closest to the
equator and most feasible for satellites with equator orbits.
Matayoshi told Cox News Service that ''We will make sure historic
sites are protected, and that our environment is not disturbed. We
are very impressed with the concern shown so far by the company (SSI)
for these issues. We think it's going to work out all right.''
The state's planning director, Hideto Kono, said the
satellite-launching plan was ''not a wild dream, but a very real
possibility,'' and said the state welcomed the new industry and would
give it all possible support.
Hawaii Island is four times the size of the other Hawaiian islands
but with far less population. The island's tourism industry has been
in a slump for the past two years, and its construction industry in
decline. Additionally, a sugar plantation has closed and unemployment
has reached 9 per cent, the highest in Hawaii. An asset is its land
area, and the new satellite industry could require some 200 acres
simply for a launching site, plus adjacent land for support
facilities.
South Point is an isolated, lava-strewn stretch of coastline where,
historians believe, Polynesians from the Marquesas Islands may have
first landed in Hawaii more than a thousand years ago.
The satellite firm, SSI, reportedly is working on a solid-fuel
rocket which might be test-launched in Texas this summer, but the
first continuing launch program is scheduled for Hawaii and
preliminary studies indicate the starting date would be within the
next three years.
Distributed by The N.Y. Times News Service
nyt-03-12-82 0932est
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