Proposed rocket launch site in Michigan fuels community concerns

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• Geoff Bennett:

  Typically, when you think of rocket launches, you think of places like Cape Canaveral or the Kennedy Space Center, but now a group in Michigan wants to change that, they're attempting to build a new launch site right alongside Lake Superior, but many Michigan locals are fighting to keep the plan from taking off. Special Correspondent Megan Thompson reports.

• Megan Thompson:

  After more than three decades as a trial attorney in Chicago, Denny Ferraro looked forward to a quiet retirement. In 2017, he moved to Michigan's Upper Peninsula or the UP as it's called around here, an area he had visited as a child.

• Denny Ferraro:

  And I could never forget the beauty of the landscape or the freshwater.

• Megan Thompson:

  Then three years after Ferraro bought his retreat on Lake Superior, he received some unwelcome news.

• Denny Ferraro:

  You see a beautiful promontory of land with those beautiful sandstone cliffs?

• Megan Thompson:

  Yeah.

• Denny Ferraro:

  That's where it's going to be built.

• Megan Thompson:

  It is a spaceport for launching small and medium sized rockets.

• Gavin Brown, Michigan Aerospace Manufacturers Association:

  We are looking forward to this exciting time to bring Michigan into the space state status.

• Megan Thompson:

  In this video from the Detroit Free Press, the project was announced in July 2020 by Gavin Brown, the Executive Director of the Michigan Aerospace Manufacturers Association. The group also wants to build a horizontal launch site where an aircraft carrying a payload takes off from a runway and a command and control center in other parts of the state. The launch pad in the UP would be used to send so called Low Earth orbit satellites into space.

• James Causey, Global Spaceport Alliance:

  Anyone who has a cell phone is already using low Earth orbit.

• Megan Thompson:

  James Causey of the Global Spaceport Alliance says the 5000 or so satellites in low Earth orbit provide everything from GPS to broadband internet to increasingly precise images of Earth that have all kinds of applications.

• James Causey:

  They run from what's going on in the oceans all through agriculture. They already are helping the military enormously.

• Megan Thompson:

  Causey says other activities that may sound like science fiction now could be reality soon, things like space tourism and hypersonic flight.

• James Causey:

  It will be going from D.C. to Sydney in an hour.

• Megan Thompson:

  As the technology takes off, so does the interest in building more launch sites. In the U.S. there are already 14 spaceports licensed by the FAA. That's on top of the two launch sites owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin. James Causey estimates space ports are being considered in somewhere around 15 to 20 more communities.

• Gavin Brown:

  What the landscape look like here in the UP is a vibrant, robust space industry that will be contributing to hundreds of jobs.

• Megan Thompson:

  The Michigan Aerospace Manufacturers Association received $2 million from the state to study and form its plans, which it said would create at least 650 new jobs and potentially pumped millions in Michigan's economy.

• Christopher Germain, Lake Superior Community Partnership:

  We're potentially becoming part of a burgeoning industry right up here that could have a pretty significant economic impact if it plays out.

• Megan Thompson:

  Christopher Germain leads the Lake Superior Community Partnership, one of the area's main economic development groups.

• Christopher Germain:

  I think at this stage, we're supportive of the concept of it as long as it plays out and the community decides that's what makes the most sense for it.

• Megan Thompson:

  That decision is far from certain. The proposed launch site is in this densely wooded section of rural Powell Township. It's home to wildlife like bears and bald eagles, and close to popular hiking trails and beaches. And it sits on the edge of Lake Superior, one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world.

• Carl Lindquist, Superior Watershed Partnership:

  It represents over 10% of the world's available freshwater is the cleanest of the Great Lakes. It's the wildest of the Great Lakes, it's all these superlatives. It's hard to capture in words.

• Megan Thompson:

  Carl Lindquist leads the Superior Watershed Partnership, one of several groups opposing the project because of environmental concerns.

• Carl Lindquist:

  First and foremost is water quality, protecting Lake Superior. There's habitat impacts, light pollution, noise pollution, quality of life. All these issues, I could go on.

• Megan Thompson:

  Lindquist points out that local and international groups have been working for decades to protect Lake Superior from development and climate change.

• Carl Lindquist:

  Yet then these outside developers come in and say they want to plop a rocket launcher right outside of our community and from a climate standpoint it just appalling.

• Megan Thompson:

  Another concern, safety. According to the FAA, around 11% of all launches result in a mishap. That means potential road closures and even evacuations.

• Denny Ferraro:

  Should launch here doesn't make any sense.

• Megan Thompson:

  Denny Ferraro also doesn't think a spaceport here would be a boon to the economy. He got his hands on a taxpayer funded report by the Michigan based IQM Research Institute that previously hadn't been released to the public. It estimated the space projects combined would provide annual revenue equivalent to two additional fast food chain restaurants.

  How much for you is this about just not wanting this project in your backyard?

• Denny Ferraro:

  This is everybody's backyard. I'm 75 years old. I'm not going to be around much longer, but I want to see this area preserved for whoever comes in live here. It says protect Lake Superior, stop the rocket.

• Megan Thompson:

  To fight the project, Ferraro started a nonprofit called Citizens for a Safe and Clean Lake Superior. The group's lawn signs can be seen around the small city of Marquette. There's even a billboard on the main highway. A local college students started an online petition opposing the launch pad that's gathered signatures from more than 25,000 people all over the world. The orchestrated opposition could spell trouble.

  In Camden Georgia public outrage has been holding up a proposed spaceport there. Uproar on Hawaii's Big Island helped scuttle a similar project in 2019. To move forward in the UP, the spaceport promoters will need to complete environmental and safety studies, get a license from the FAA and gain the approval of the Planning Commission in Powell Township.

• Darlene Turner, Powell Township Supervisor:

  There wouldn't be a public hearing.

• Megan Thompson:

  Township Supervisor Darlene Turner says the Michigan aerospace Manufacturers Association has yet to meet with the Township and gave them no heads up about their plans.

• Darlene Turner:

  First time we heard it was when it was a note on the court house steps.

• Megan Thompson:

  Can you make any predictions about how you think the commission might end up voting?

• Darlene Turner:

  My personal opinion is no, it will never pass.

• Megan Thompson:

  If that happens, Turner says the spaceport backers can turn to the courts. The Michigan Aerospace Manufacturers Association declined our interview request. But via email, a spokesperson questioned the validity of the economic impact report and responded to community environmental concerns writing, "New and greater launch technologies, including electronic propulsion systems continue to be developed that will lessen any environmental impact." But those arguments won't swayed Denny Ferraro.

• Denny Ferraro:

  Lake Superior is a precious global resource that we need to protect, conserve not only for our lifetime, but for generations and generations to come.

• Megan Thompson:

  For "PBS News Weekend," I'm Megan Thompson and Powell Township, Michigan.