Some time ago there was a '60 minutes' segment on the proposed launch
facility on the Cape York peninsula. They took two naturalists (one was
a bird specialist, the other I'm not sure about) up to the area in
question. On the show they switched periodically between the
naturalists and the developer intent on building the facility. The
developer said the place was nothing but worthless scrub land and indeed
some of the areas shown were semi-arid in appearance (how any natural
ecosystem can be classed as worthless/expendable because it doesn't look
like the ideal resort area just pisses me off) However, they then went
to the exact location of the space base and found an area of untouched
rainforest including a new species of insect (could be wrong here,
memory's a bit vague;^) and a rare species of parrot (among other
things). Several times they switched back to the developer who would
say things at odds with what was shown. It turned out that he had never
been to the area and was pretty uncomfortable with the stuff 60 minutes
brought up. Another interesting bit was that the oil to power the place
(i.e. the town which would house the people) would have to be shipped
in through the Great Barrier Reef (great place for an oil spill eh:^(.
Anyway this is not supposed to be about the details of the area or the
reliability of 60 minutes and its reporting technique. It's just that
since that report there has been nothing else and the silence is
worrying (I doubt it means they've packed the idea in). I imagine that
the information is around and I've started looking for it by talking to
the Wilderness Society but there is a general trend to assume nothing
bad is happening if you don't hear about it (I found it very worrying
that without the higher profile publicity I started to forget about it
in favour of other things). Does anyone know what the current situation
is with the launch facility? If so I would appreciate any information.
Post it or mail it to me and I'll post a summary.
Thanks in advance.
Steve.
P.S. I'm posting this for world distribution because the launch
facility is an international setup and so information from other
countries could be important.
-- Steve Lechowicz, Research Officer (stvl@bhpcpd.kembla.oz.au) BHP Coated Products Division, Research and Technology Centre Port Kembla, New South Wales, Australia.