RICHARD S. EHRLICH
Got a nuclear-capable
intercontinental ballistic missile you need to test?
Website, more Asia news by Richard S. Ehrlich plus the non-fiction book of interviews, documentation and investigative journalism, titled: "Hello My Big Big Honey!" Love Letters to Bangkok Bar Girls and Their Revealing Interviews
This is Only a Nuclear-Capable Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Test
BANGKOK, Thailand
Or a
cruise missile you want to check for long-distance
accuracy?
Need proof that your Patriot can destroy a
Scud?
Welcome to America's $4 billion Kwajalein Missile
Range.
Kwajalein Atoll is a curved string of more than 100 tiny
islands that form the world's largest lagoon.
The atoll
sits in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, near the
equator, halfway between Hawaii and New Guinea.
Kwajalein
(pronounced "KWAH-ja-lan") is part of the U.S. Army's
"space support" to the U.S. Space and Strategic Defense
Command, and to NASA and the Department of Defense.
To
earn extra cash amid military cutbacks, the isolated
Pacific Islands base has decided to market its services
and skills to the world.
Kwajalein Missile Range is now open for business, helping
the world confirm the accuracy and killing power of its
weapons.
The site's slogan: "Unsurpassed capabilities for
full-envelope national and theater missile defense
testing."
Kwajalein Missile Range deputy director Stan McMurtrie said in an interview that the base is up for grabs.
"If
somebody comes to us and says, 'We want to shoot an ICBM
from XX location into Kwajalein Missile Range,' we would
say, 'Let's talk about the particulars and see what we
can do for you,' " he said.
"Our marketing efforts in the foreign arena are in their
infancy," McMurtrie said.
"We've had contact, basic
discussions, and only time will tell if they come to
fruition. As of now, no foreign testing has occurred from
our marketing efforts, but we hope they come."
How could they resist?
Kwajalein's islands offer miles of
beachfront test facilities and package deals to suit both
western and third world budgets.
McMurtrie wouldn't
reveal the prices of any specific testing scenarios; he
said Kwajalein would negotiate fees with potential
clients on a case-by-case basis.
Kwajalein Missile
Range's documents say the range is "operated by a
government and contractor team that includes military
personnel, government civilians, technical support
contractors, and scientists from MIT's Lincoln
Laboratory."
Still more documents advertise "Lethal Assessment,"
"Multiple Simultaneous Engagements," " 'End Game'
Characterization," "Debris Recovery," and other military
testing scenarios.
Kwajalein supports "operational and
developmental testing of theater ballistic missiles,
strategic ballistic missiles, theater and strategic
missile interceptors, NASA space operations and
experiments, U.S. Space Command, near-earth surveillance,
deep space surveillance, satellite tracking, and new
foreign launch coverage."
Weapons can be monitored from
the sea or from an "Airborne Surveillance Testbed."
"A
full spectrum of land impacts" is also available.
Ordnance handling equipment and storage facilities,
liquid nitrogen manufacture, and an instrument
calibration laboratory are included in the base support
functions.
KMR has an airport and a harbor and owns three fixed-wing
aircraft and five UH-1 helicopters.
"These aircraft,
normally used for intra-island transportation of
personnel and materials, are available for appropriate
mission activities and dedicated mission support,"
according to the documents.
"A grocery store, a general store, a convenience store, a
library, a hospital, and religious and recreational
facilities -- all are available to transient mission
support personnel."
To test an Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, simply
plunk down cash and arrive at Kwajalein.
"We're ready to
do any of it right now," McMurtrie said.
"If somebody
walked in the door and said, 'Here's what I want to do,'
we would sit down."
You'll have to remove nuclear warheads from the missile
before you test it, though.
Weapons such as nukes and
chemical warheads, whose use the United States has
limited by treaties, are forbidden.
Last October McMurtrie was in Bangkok to market Kwajalein
at the prestigious international Defense Asia '97
exhibition.
Kwajalein's booth displayed a huge color
photograph of a Patriot intercepting a Scud.
Delegates
from around the world attended the exhibition, which
featured weapons such as submarines and warplanes.
After the Japanese temporarily captured the island during
World War II, U.S. Army troops and Marines assault-landed
on Kwajalein in February 1944.
Kwajalein is now part of
the Republic of the Marshall Islands and boasts "nearly
40 years of successful support" from the U.S. government.
The missile range encompasses about 750,000 square miles,
though only 70 square miles are dry land.
Military personnel say the island is a strategic spot in
the middle of the Pacific Ocean, where missiles can be
tested over long distances with a minimum of danger.
"We have lots of water and very little land mass with
population," McMurtrie said.
"That minimizes safety
considerations for testing. There are no major air
routes, or shipping lanes, through our area. ICBMs,
Minutemans, and Peacekeepers are fired from Vandenberg
Air Force Base in California, and we are the receiving
end. We provide the data collection and scoring for these
operational tests."
Vandenberg is 4,840 miles east of
Kwajalein.
Cruise missiles are also designed to travel miles and
miles before obliterating a target.
"We're doing a
feasibility study for cruise missile testing," McMurtrie
said.
"A cruise missile flies 50 or 100 feet off the
ground, and if they want to send it in, our radar looks
out over the horizon."
Customers' missiles can be fired to hit a bull's-eye out
at sea or to be involved in a midair interception.
"We
provide the launch site for the interceptor, and target,
as well as provide the tracking and safety management of
the test," McMurtrie said.
"This isn't sensational
explosions. These are more 'accuracy intercept'-type
testing criteria instead of a lethality demonstration.
Normally, they are high explosive, or hit to kill, metal
on metal. Missile on a missile."
Potential customers could also launch satellites into
space.
"I would call commercial space and cruise missiles
'emerging opportunities,' " McMurtrie said.
Kwajalein's location is an advantage when a satellite
needs to be positioned in equatorial orbit.
From
elsewhere on Earth, satellites need to curve across miles
of space to reach an equatorial orbit.
But from
equatorial Kwajalein it's a straight shot.
"We can put more pounds in space being near the equator,
with the same booster, which is enticing to these
commercial space launches," McMurtrie said.
The island's proximity to weapons-hungry Asia is also a
plus, McMurtrie said.
"We are closer to Asia-Pacific for
those Asia-Pacific countries. We provide a full envelope.
Our testing capability exceeds the test-range
capabilities on the continental United States."
"We don't test," McMurtrie said.
"That's a misnomer.
They test their system. We provide the data to validate
their test objectives."
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