Launch project sidesteps clash of future, past

Thursday, Aug. 27, 1998 | 10:49 a.m.

The Stone Age and the Space Age clashed briefly following a discovery by archaeologists of 4,000-year-old artifacts at a Nevada Test Site spot chosen to launch satellites.

But cooperation between state and federal agencies have saved the arrowheads, grinding stones and scrapers while allowing Kistler Aerospace to go ahead with plans to launch 128-foot reusable vehicles.

The Kistler project could put communications satellites into space by the year 2000 and, for the first time, return the reuseable two-stage spacecraft developed for the procedure to the launching pad. Satellites routinely go aloft on a one-shot rocket, a process that is expensive.

Jack Gregory of Kistler said he experienced many anxious moments once the Indian treasures had been discovered. "It could have put an insurmountable obstacle in the path of the project, the first of its kind for retrievable launchers," he said Wednesday. "It's called a show-stopper."

Instead the Department of Energy called archaeologists Barbara Holz and Colleen Beck to survey the area during 1997 in the northwest section of the Test Site flanked by Pahute Mesa and Rainier Mesa.

During their survey, Holz and Beck added to the historical treasure, discovering prehistoric fragments in the area. The exact location has not been revealed to protect the site.

Earlier surveys in the area had showed temporary camps, rock shelters and other evidence of hunting and gathering. The mesas once nurtured rich stores of pinyon pine nuts offering food supplies when tribes wandered the Great Basin.

But this time the archaeologists dug into fragments predating recorded history.

Beck and Holz discovered that most of the flakes and arrowheads were made of obsidian. Other materials included chert, jasper and quartzite. Early people also chipped welded tuff and other volcanic rocks into tools.

Pottery scraps at the site date between A.D. 700 and 1150 had Anasazi and Intermountain Brownware sources. Tribes traded goods with each other long before the Air Force and later the DOE claimed the land.

The Desert Research Institute recommended the location as a national historical site, but Kistler Aerospace could not avoid using it in its operations. As it is, the company will be employing a building once used to assemble nuclear rocket engines that already made the historical list.

So the DRI collected, catalogued and stored the bits and pieces of a prehistoric past during which man only dreamed of flying. The items could one day be displayed in the DRI's Southern Nevada facility at Flamingo Road and Spencer Avenue once the building is expanded.

State Historical Preservation Officer Ronald James said that the DOE and Kistler followed the preservation steps to the letter. "The Nevada Test Site has some very old, some very interesting pieces that help fill in the state's past," he said.

But the satellite project will give the Test Site prominence on maps of the future.

"This is a very exciting project by Kistler," James said. "We'll be charting new territory with that project."

The DOE has been working with Nevada's 17 Indian tribes for years. In this case, the DOE consulted with tribal representatives before taking action to preserve sites whether they contained pottery shards or sacred burial sites, DOE spokesman Darwin Morgan said.

In fact the Indians make the final decision about what to do with ancient remains found on the Test Site, spokeswoman Roxanne Dey said. "The Indians have the last word," she said.

Kistler is anxious for the Commercial Space Act, sponsored by Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., Bob Graham, D-Fla., and Connie Mack, R-Fla., to move to the president's desk for signature. The act is bottled up in a joint committee as ammunition for this year's budget battles. Gregory said he expects the act to pass before Congress adjourns this year.

Then the Federal Aviation Administration has to OK the project at the Test Site, he said.

Kistler, based in Kirkland, Wash., has a contract with communications company Loreal for 10 satellite launches from the Test Site, Gregory said.

In the next decade, 2,000 satellites will be launched worldwide to control telephone traffic and wireless communications, he said. "They'd rather launch from the United States as long as it's cheaper," he said. And the implementation of reusable craft will further reduce the cost from that of the one-shot rockets used today.

In case there is any delay in Nevada, Kistler is preparing to break ground in Woomera, southern Australia, to act as another spaceport. Kistler has completed environmental permits and other hurdles, Gregory said.

Taxpayer dollars won't pay for Kistler's two-stage launchers taking off every nine days. Commercial companies will pay.

The DOE is cooperating with Kistler. The federal agency created a special corridor so that international companies can go the Test Site and do business, DOE's Nevada Operations Manager Gerald Johnson said.

"That's a first for the DOE," he said, noting the northeast section of the site has been secured for defense projects or other work requiring a national security blanket.

The Nevada Test Site Development Corp. is studying a place for an industrial park that would open its gates to international companies in the southern portion of the Test Site, said Tim Carlson, director of the NTS Development Corp.