It’s as much ritual as protest, and both sides know the drill cold. Before the test launch of an ICBM, anti-nuclear demonstrators clutching homemade signs gather outside Central California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base where the Pacific Coast Highway knifes through the sprawling installation. They stand on one side of the prominent green line painted across the asphalt near the guard shack, while military police stand on the other. Eventually, a small knot of the protesters emerges from the larger group and strides across the line, and into the arms of the waiting, and likely a little bored, ... Read More
Going Ballistic: From Cold War to Commercial Space
June 21, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
JUST ANOTHER DAY AT THE BEACH, April 3, sunny and balmy, across from Amtrak’s Surf railroad station, a two-track whistle stop along the California shoreline. Campers and drivers in open jeeps and more than a few BMWs keep joining the gathering crowd, their kids running off toward the waves. Others pace the platform. Two hours to go, according to the red Amtrak schedule board, where the 4:12 is listed. The station is a speck of California, just shy of Vandenberg Air Force Base. Amtrak runs right though the base, but today the 4:12 isn’t a train; it is the time scheduled for blastoff of a ... Read More
