Musk Rox at Johnston?
Over the past year, rumors have circulated that Elon Musk’s SpaceX company was planning to use Johnston Island, around 800 miles south of Hawai`i, as a launch site for its powerful super-heavy rockets.
The truth is a little different. No plans to launch from Johnston, but rather to use the island as a landing site for those same huge rockets as the Air Force and SpaceX attempt to develop a means to use them for deliveries of munitions and other support materiel to armed forces involved in conflicts around the world.
It would not be the first time Johnston has been abused by the nation’s military. It was reshaped as an air base in World War II. It was contaminated with plutonium when used as a test site for nuclear weapons in the 1950s and `60s. It hosted a nerve-gas incineration facility during the 1990s.
The Air Force has been preparing an environmental assessment for this project for a year or longer, according to records obtained by Environment Hawai`i under the Freedom of Information Act. Here is our preview.
