Launching of satellites from Test Site takes a step forward

Using a pen that writes upside-down in space, representatives of the U.S. Department of Energy and Kistler Aerospace signed sealed a contract Friday allowing commercial aerospace company to launch satellites from the Nevada Test Site, where nuclear bombs once exploded.

"We would love to see a launch in the year 2000," said DOE's Nevada Operations Manager Gerald Johnson. That marks the 50th anniversary of the Test Site's existence.

Better known as the U.S. proving ground for Cold War weapons, the Test Site is trying to find new missions in the 21st century, Johnson said.

Kistler is working with the Nevada Test Site Development Corp. to bring commercial satellite launches by retrievable craft to the Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The corporation formed after President George Bush stopped nuclear tests in September 1992.

"It's another step on the way to the stars," said Kistler CEO George Mueller of Seattle, where the corporation is based.

Kistler would become the second commercial venture at the Test Site and the largest one so far. Fluid Tech, a small company that cleans up low-level nuclear waste, opened for business earlier this year.

However, the space venture has not secured Federal Aviation Administration permission and has to comply with environmental studies. It could take more than a year to win FAA approval.

The skies above the Test Site are restricted, and the Nellis Air Force Base Range further shuts out commercial aircraft. Yucca Mountain, which is being studied as a burial site for high-level nuclear waste, is southwest of the Kistler landing site.

Congress earlier this year designated the Test Site as a spaceport. That designation, said Sen Harry Reid, D-Nev., who helped sponsor the bill, will bring "the most advanced science in the world to the Nevada Test Site," and the Kistler contract "allows us to be on the cutting edge of technology."

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