Resisting the Vandenberg US Air Force Base, California

Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space Jeju Island International Peace Conference 24-26 February 2012 Resisting the Vandenberg US Air Force Base, California

By Dennis Apel Catholic Workers, Guadalupe, California

My name is Dennis Apel and I come to you from the Central Coast of California in the Western United States. I live and work in the small town of Guadalupe, California which sits among the many agricultural fields common is this region of California. I live in a community which serves the needs of the farm-workers of the area, most of whom are immigrants from Mexico to the south and are not technically allowed to live in the United States because they lack legal documentation. They are, however, readily hired by the growers and work long hours for poverty-level wages in order to bring us our produce at a low price. My community provides food, clothes, shelter and free medical care to those who come to us.

Just a few miles to the south of the house where we live and work is the northern end of Vandenberg Air Force Base. Geographically it is the 3rd largest Air Force base in the United States comprising 401.4 sq. km. (155 sq. mi.) with a perimeter 159 km (99 mi.) long.

The land on which the base sits was originally the sacred land of the Native American tribe of Chumash Indians who inhabited the Central California for some 13,000 years before the arrival of the Europeans.

In 1941 the U.S. Army opened Camp Cook as a training Center and in 1957 the Base was transferred to the U.S. Air Force and renamed after General Hoyt S. Vandenberg to begin its current mission as a space launch and ballistic missile test facility.

Vandenberg’s primary function is as a space launch facility. It is the only location in the United States where rockets carrying satellites are able to place their payloads in a polar orbit as opposed to an equatorial orbit. Both government and commercial satellites are launched from the Base and some missions are secret and the specifics of the payload classified. All rockets are launched from Space Launch Complexes sprinkled along the coast at the southern end of the Base.

Since the 1980’s, Vandenberg has also been the home of the Western Missile Range which is comprised of a 4,200-mile-long corridor extending from the west coast of California to the Marshall Islands in the Pacific Ocean. On average, four times each year the Base conducts test launches of our nation’s Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles. ICBMs are fired from underground missile silos at the north end of the base and carry multiple dummy warheads targeted to land in a lagoon at Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands. The 4,200-mile trip takes about 20 minutes and the cost of each launch ranges from $50 million to $100 million. All silos (about 14 of them) are located at the northern end of the Base and are similar to the silos in the Central United States where active ICBMs are on alert. All ICBMs tested are actually removed from active

1 deployment and transported to Vandenberg having had their active nuclear warheads replaced with dummy warheads. The dummy warheads contain depleted uranium to simulate the weight of the actual warheads and have been polluting the lagoon at Kwajalein for years affecting the livelihoods of the indigenous peoples there.

In addition to regular tests of ICBMs, Vandenberg is heavily involved in the Missile Defense Program, both in the testing and in the deployment of ground–based mid-course interceptors. A number of tests of a system designed to shoot down incoming ICBMs from other countries using interceptor missiles have been performed from Vandenberg. Typically an ICMB is launched from Vandenberg and an interceptor missile is launched from Kwajalein with the hope of an impact in space destroying the dummy warhead carried by the ICBM. Although the system has experienced a number of failures and a few limited successes, interceptors have been deployed at both Vandenberg Air Force Base (at least 3) and at Ft. Greely in Alaska (9 or more).

Recently, Vandenberg has been involved in testing a new weapon called the Falcon HTV-2, an unmanned aerial vehicle containing a conventional (non-nuclear) bomb which is placed into low earth orbit using a retired Peacekeeper missile. The program is sponsored by DARPA (The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) and its intention is to give the United States the capability to bomb any target on the planet within an hour. The first test launch of this system (June 2010) cost $150 million and failed.

Vandenberg is also the home of the Joint Space Operations Center (JSpOC). The purpose of this facility is to integrate the data received from satellites and to make that data available to the four branches of the Armed Forces as well as to specific Allied Nations. Data can be used for surveillance, tracking, targeting, space superiority, and controlled access to space. The data is then used in any location where our armed forces have current operations including war zones and areas of clandestine operations.

As with many military institutions, the environment along an incredibly beautiful and pristine expanse of California coastline has been affected by the military’s presence here. One of the components of rocket fuel is the chemical Ammonium Perchlorate, known to cause birth defects in fetuses and thyroid disease in adults. The U.S. government’s General Accountability Office, which studied the levels of Perchlorate contamination at Department of Defense sites, including military facilities and military contractor facilities, found the ground water at Vandenberg to have been contaminated to 517 ppb (parts per billion). Depending on which study one accepts, the safe level of Perchlorate in drinking water is considered to be between 4 and 6 ppb. Recent studies have also shown that a large percentage of the lettuce grown and distributed throughout the United States is contaminated with Perchlorate as is much of the Nation’s milk. Perchlorate is now being found in mothers’ breast milk as well.

Since the 1980’s when Vandenberg first began test launches of the Minuteman ICBM, local activists have held regular rallies, protests and vigils at the Base. Many have been arrested and some have spent time in prison for their resistance to our government’s policies and Vandenberg’s roll in those policies. Those actions continue today as a means of confronting our

2 government’s drive toward what the U.S. Space Command calls “Full Spectrum Dominance,” a dominance heavily supported by the mission of Vandenberg Air Force Base.