In this issue: From Kwajalein to Mars in 40 pages
By Ben Iannotta|January 2025
I’ve never been to Kwajalein Atoll, but after reading our cover story I feel like I have.
The climate aspect of the story made me recall that the U.S. Navy long ago realized that a new navigable sea is emerging in the Arctic. The services that rely on Kwajalein might be on the cusp of their own epiphany: that rising waters mean the outpost’s usefulness for military testing won’t be perpetual.
Like any well-done story, the piece also gave me an idea for a possible follow-up. Perhaps the “best days” do in fact lie ahead for the atoll, as one interviewee in the story says. Just in case, it could be wise to brainstorm alternatives, if the Pentagon is not already doing so. China, for example, has created artificial islands in the South China Sea, so couldn’t the key islands in Kwajalein be buttressed similarly? Reefs elsewhere could be protected or restored to compensate for any environmental damage. What about building floating platforms or barges to launch targets and host radars or telescopes? The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has the floating Sea-based X-band Radar, a golf-ball-looking radome on an elevated platform. There was also the short-lived international Sea Launch consortium that launched rockets and satellites from a mobile platform.
Turning to my interview with Tim Arel, head of FAA’s Air Traffic Organization, I hope we here in the United States always permit someone who excels at a specific skill to reach such a high level without a bachelor’s degree. The timeliness for the interview was the spate of runway incursions experienced in the U.S. in the months coming off the pandemic and the shortage of controllers in some locations that FAA is working to solve.
The interview reminded me that when fallible human beings are brought together as a well-equipped and managed team, the result is something efficient and powerful, in this case “a beautiful movement of aircraft,” as Arel calls it. While FAA is not always noted for its agility — See for example, “Permission to launch” — it snapped into action with a series of policy and technology initiatives to address the close calls at U.S. airports. I came away reassured but also wondering if there’s a limit to how much throughput our airports, the skies and workers can handle.
Also in this issue, we’ve introduced a revamped version of “The Big Question,” a department where we ask experts in a particular field to opine about a specific question, in this case, “Will humans ever permanently settle on Mars?” If nothing else, the answers show that settling Mars will require much more than building the rockets and spacecraft to take people there. Expertise beyond aerospace engineering will be required, including in the medical, mental health and food cultivation realms.
