Elmer's Gantry
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http://www.floridatoday.com/news/space/stories/2004a/020704savethepad.htm
NASA delays tower destruction
Preservationists will try to save historic pad
BY TODD HALVORSON
FLORIDA TODAY
CAPE CANAVERAL -- NASA delayed plans to dispose of the hazardous remnants of a historic Apollo launch tower this week to see wheter a preservation group can come up with enough money to turn the gantry into a national monument.
Known as Launch Umbilical Tower 1, the gantry was the starting point for eight Apollo and Skylab flights, including the flight that took astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon in July 1969.
The 380-foot tower was dismantled in 1983, and segments of it since have been rusting in a five-acre "bone yard" behind the NASA headquarters building at Kennedy Space Center, creating an environmental hazard.
Several previous "Save The Tower" campaigns have failed,and now heavy metals and toxic substances within orange gantry paint are leeching into the soil at the open-air storage site as well as the water table beneath it.
To comply with federal and state regulations, NASA this week launched a $2 million effort to decontaminate and dispose of the pieces.
"A lot of people have tried over the years to save the tower, but unfortunately no one has come up with the financial wherewithal to do it," said Burton Summerfield, chief of the safety, health and environmental division at KSC.
"For us right now, this is an environmental issue rather than a historic preservation issue."
NASA nevertheless put the disposal project on hold to investigate a last-minute proposal from The Space Restoration Society, a nascent non-profit organization still seeking its tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service.
(more at site...)
NASA delays tower destruction
Preservationists will try to save historic pad
BY TODD HALVORSON
FLORIDA TODAY
CAPE CANAVERAL -- NASA delayed plans to dispose of the hazardous remnants of a historic Apollo launch tower this week to see wheter a preservation group can come up with enough money to turn the gantry into a national monument.
Known as Launch Umbilical Tower 1, the gantry was the starting point for eight Apollo and Skylab flights, including the flight that took astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon in July 1969.
The 380-foot tower was dismantled in 1983, and segments of it since have been rusting in a five-acre "bone yard" behind the NASA headquarters building at Kennedy Space Center, creating an environmental hazard.
Several previous "Save The Tower" campaigns have failed,and now heavy metals and toxic substances within orange gantry paint are leeching into the soil at the open-air storage site as well as the water table beneath it.
To comply with federal and state regulations, NASA this week launched a $2 million effort to decontaminate and dispose of the pieces.
"A lot of people have tried over the years to save the tower, but unfortunately no one has come up with the financial wherewithal to do it," said Burton Summerfield, chief of the safety, health and environmental division at KSC.
"For us right now, this is an environmental issue rather than a historic preservation issue."
NASA nevertheless put the disposal project on hold to investigate a last-minute proposal from The Space Restoration Society, a nascent non-profit organization still seeking its tax-exempt status from the Internal Revenue Service.
(more at site...)
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