I apologize if this is of very limited interest, but, well…this IS MPSIMS!
Anyway, the wife and I got a chance to take a quck trip over to Meck Island launch facility tomorrow (It’s 10 pm on Kwaj right now…we’re on, I think, Fiji Standard Time). We have the necessary clearances and we’ll be taking the boat over there at 6 am. Since the site is inactive right now, I’ll be able to bring the camera and take some pictures. I think only the missile silos themselves are off-limits to picture taking. We will tour the facility, walk around the island, do some reefing and beachcombing as well as enjoy a 20 or 30 minute boat ride.
It will be kinda strange being the only people on the island, but it’s a priceless opportunity, well worth burning a vacation day in order to go. This reminds me to go grab some change and put it in the backpack because they do have a operating soft drink machine and snack machine at the facility. We’ll probably pass on the snacks as they are probably pretty stale! I’ve got water and sunscreen for everyone, though.
By way of a little background, Meck has been the launch site for several missile intercept experiments and other rocketry stuff. I remember the HOE (Homing Overlay Experiment) from back in 1984 when they shot a missile at a missile from there. Nothing you can’t Google, so I won’t go on.
Some of you good folk have been following our little saga, so if there is any interest, I’ll post a link to some of the pictures when we get back tomorrow.
All the best from Kwaj and best wishes for a wonderful 2007 to all!
We are back, exastris and here is a link to some of the spots we visited. I was wrong about the boat trip, it took an hour to get there and back. But the weather was perfect and it was really, truly, interesting.
Also, I ofund out that there are usually around 30 people still working on the island just to keep it up for the next round of testing in a year or two, so we weren’t completely alone.
Wow, I didn’t know they closed Meck. Where do they do mission launches from now?
My dad worked on the HOE mission, from Roi Namur. (TRADEX, I think. Maybe ALTAIR.) He had some stories to tell, but they were mostly gossip about the conditions of the test and whether they cheated or not.
I remember around 1988 or 1989 or so there was a really bad fire on Meck. My girlfriend’s dad was fire chief, he said that they spent too much time just delivering manpower to put it out. Apparently there was some limitations with the helicopters. Anyway.
I’m totally jealous, by the way. I’ve always wanted to see Meck.
Meck is part of the Kwajalein atoll of the Marshall Islands and is the location of the Reagan Test Site. Meck isn’t closed or even technically mothballed, but for various reasons (mostly budgetary) it hasn’t been used for launches since 2005, when a ground equipment failure caused a launch abort of an OBV test. I don’t know of any active plans to use Meck in the near future, but it’s always a consideration when we talk about transportation of an integrated vehcile to launch sites. Omelek is the launch site leased by SpaceX for their Falcon rockets. Neither is off-limits (except when operations are going on) and there’s supposed to be some good wreck diving in the area. Never been there myself–I just get sent to the ass-end of the planet like remote areas of Virginia or Alaska–but I wouldn’t mind doing the trip some day, as long as I don’t get stuck out there for four months at a time. :eek:
The hot facilities for mission launches right now are Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska and of course Vandenberg AFB. Both have facilities that are managed by private contractors that are, in theory, cheaper than using the Air Force to manage them (though in practice we fail to see much in the way of savings; big surprise there, I know) but of course neither one is equatorial, making them best suited to polar orbital launches. So it all depends on what your mission is.
They are supposed to start gearing up in 2007 for some more launches as part of a new initiative whose name I don’t remember, but it won’t be GMD. All that mission control equipment is stored in several rooms and won’t be reused; they’ll bring in new stuff for the next round.
It was strange-feeling walking inside the near-deserted command center, kinda like those end-of-the-world movie scenes with huge complexes and no one in them. Offices stocked with office supplies, a/c still on, lights and everything, and no one there but us, sitting in the manager’s office eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches…eerie, I tells ya.
If you asked me when I was out there (for 13 years!) I would’ve agreed with you. But now that I’ve been on the mainland for even longer, I find myself trying to convince my wife that a year or two wouldn’t be so bad. …On the theory that we need to work on our tans, of course.
I was hired in 1975 as a Fire Fighter when Global Associates was the logistical contractor for all the facilities in the Marshalls. On Meck Island. I had to make inspections on the only facility that exists on Meck Island, besides the Fire Station. I want to be careful here because I had a Secret Clearance, and to this day, and many decades later, I shall never violate the conditions of my clearance. However, indeed, history was made on Meck Island with the FIRST successful intercept of a “missle” shot from Vandenberg AFB. I also served on Roi-Namur and Kwajalein. I left in February 1982 (sadly) to marry my wife in Japan 33 years ago. Yes, we are still together. When I was on Roi and Kwaj, we had nothing compared to what is on those islands today! I loved the Marshalls, and it will never get out of my blood.
Welcome to the SDMB SushiDog! I hope you stick around and post some more. You probably won’t get a reply from the OP, since this thread is almost 9 years old, and the original poster hasn’t posted in about 5 years.
