Beal rocket launch company shuts down
THE Beal spaceport company from Texas which had planned to set up a commercial rocket launch base here, is shutting down operations because of competition from the United States Government, founder Mr Andrew Beal announced yesterday. In a statement released here, Beal Aerospace Technologies Inc. said it "regrets to announce that it is ceasing all business operations" from yesterday.
It was not immediately clear what was the status of the land the Beal firm acquired in the northwest district for the planned spaceport.
In an agreement signed in May this year, Beal Aerospace was to invest some US$300M in setting up the spaceport and work on the rocket launch site was to start within 16 months.
Guyana's plans for a rocket launch site follow the lead of French Guiana where the European Space Centre sends more than half the world's commercial satellites skyward each year aboard Ariana rockets from Paris-based Arianespace.
The Guyana Government had been looking to the project for better `name recognition' to bolster its investment attractiveness and Prime Minister Sam Hinds said he was disappointed at the Beal decision.
He said the government was reviewing the statement from Mr Beal but told the Chronicle he had expected some "shaking out at various stages" because there was a large number of starters in the commercial space launch business.
"I would have been happier if Beal Aerospace was lasting the course but the main issue they point to is the apparent selection by the U.S. government of Boeing and Lockheed for special support", he said.
Mr Hinds said Guyana continues to "be a great place to develop a spaceport and we remain extremely welcome to Boeing, Lockheed and any others."
He said the Texas firm had no assets on the ground in the project site and "there is nothing to dismantle" here.
It had done "very preliminary start-up layouts of the area", Prime Minister Hinds told the Chronicle.
In his statement, Beal, Chairman and founder of the firm, said the "most insurmountable risk" to his plans is the desire of the United States government and NASA (the American space agency) to "subsidise competing launch systems".
Beal had identified the northwest as ideally suited for a spaceport because it is near the equator and is largely uninhabited.
Venezuela, which has a longstanding controversy with Guyana over the region, strongly opposed the Beal rocket launch proposal and President Hugo Chavez claimed the site was to be a U.S. military base, a charge Guyana consistently denied.
Beal did not refer to the Venezuela opposition to the plan but said "uncertainty over U.S. government State Department approval to launch from our own launch facilities in the foreign country of Guyana" was a "significant and uncontrollable" risk Beal Aerospace faced.
Beal said there will "never be a private launch industry as long as NASA and the U.S. government choose and subsidise launch systems."
"While Boeing and Lockheed are private entities, their launch systems and components are derivatives of various military initiatives.
"Very little new effort takes place without significant government subsidy, control and involvement", he said.
Beal said his firm also faced risks from "federal laws mandating our potential liability for pre-existing environmental contamination at the only available Cape Canaveral launch pads".
"While we believed we could compete successfully against the government subsidised EELV launch vehicles, the characteristics and depth of subsidy for NASA's new initiative as well as its ultimate performance are impossible to determine or evaluate", Beal said.
"Once it became clear that NASA and Congress intended to proceed with their new competing launch systems, our only remaining choice was whether to cease operations entirely or to evolve into a government contractor role like Boeing and Lockheed and seeking government contracts to assist the development of the NASA system.
"We have elected to cease operations", Beal said.
He said Beal Aerospace has made "significant advances in low cost hydrogen peroxide propulsion systems and continues to believe that low cost and reliable space launch systems are viable and producible by relatively small commercial companies."
Beal said that in his capacity as Chairman and founder of Beal Aerospace, he had testified to a Congressional sub-committee that government subsidies to competing launch providers constituted the private sector's "biggest business risk".
He said NASA nonetheless "remains committed to such an effort and Congress last week approved an initial US$290 million to begin an effort that NASA declares will result in the government funding of one or two human rated subsidised launch systems within five years."
"While Beal Aerospace recognises the need for NASA to develop a human rated launch capability for space station and other human missions, we find it inexcusable and intolerable that NASA intends for these subsidised systems to additionally compete for non-human rated missions, including cargo for the space station and commercial satellite missions", Beal argued.
The Beal spaceport project had run into protest from some local opposition and other organisations but it was widely backed by the private sector and tourism and other interest groups.
As Venezuela President Chavez maintained his opposition to the scheme, President Bharrat Jagdeo said he gave him a copy of the agreement with Beal Aerospace to reinforce assurances that the spaceport project did not have a military component.
Venezuela had argued the commercial satellite launch pad, which would not have been ready before 2003, may be used as a military base, will be a U.S. ``enclave'' and its security in the hands of U.S. officials.
Mr Jagdeo told a news conference in Brasilia earlier this year he gave Chavez a copy of the agreement "so that he could see for himself that there is no intention or anything written in that agreement that would allow establishment of an American base in the Essequibo area."
He said the Beal scheme had "tremendous scope for promoting the image of Guyana" helping in "name recognition" to propose the country's tourism internationally.
A private surveying firm had been awarded a $17.2M contract payable by Beal Aerospace to carry out a boundary survey of land earmarked for the commercial spaceport.
The Guyana Government was also to appoint a committee for the resettlement of about 50 families from the site.
The project at Waini was projected to employ some 500 Guyanese during construction and 200 full-time for the day-to-day operations.
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