DDEC secretary pushes for vertical launch pad at Roosey Roads

Economic Development and Commerce Secretary Manuel Cidre Miranda, second from right, said “the aerospace sector and vertical launch are the future.”

By The Star Staff

Economic Development and Commerce (DDEC by its acronym in Spanish) Secretary Manuel Cidre Miranda asked the incoming administration on Thursday to make it possible to complete the project of launching rockets from the old Roosevelt Roads naval base in Ceiba.

“The aerospace sector and vertical launch are the future,” said Cidre Miranda during the transition hearing. “That while it’s true that the typical takeoff from an airplane is less polluting or is more manageable, what we’re really looking at is SpaceX, and what is happening is there are a lot of [...] companies interested in looking at vertical launch.”

“There is a person in the United States, I can’t publish his name, who has presented a proposal to the directors of the board of Roosevelt Roads to establish an area that doesn’t affect Roosevelt Roads, for a vertical [launch] platform,” he added.

“That is in process. I urge this administration that the person who heads that board, and the executive director in charge of Roosevelt Roads, pay special attention to opportunities in that direction,” the DDEC secretary continued. “Obviously, it is an issue that requires a lot of federal permitting, among other things, and it is an issue that is not necessarily a popular issue for reasons that are often due to ignorance, and to be honest, I possibly include myself in that perception. But we should not stop studying the option as a great possibility to develop not only Roosevelt Roads, but to develop the entire eastern region of ​​Puerto Rico,”

DDEC deputy secretary Humberto Mercader said the interested parties claim that there should not be a considerable environmental impact due to the noise or dust that the rockets would raise during the takeoff process.

“Those who were making the proposal did a study on the impact that these takeoffs would have and they categorized them, if I am not mistaken, as low, medium and high impact,” he said. “The larger the rocket, the greater the impact. And they establish that, with little impact, that is, the smallest ones, it would not affect, it would not be incompatible with the part [of the former base] that is being developed at a tourist and residential level. They even argue that it is an additional attraction for the entire area and creates an economic activity where jobs can be created, because around this there are always maintenance, repair and testing operations.”

Cidre Miranda noted that originally the residents of Ceiba and the Roosevelt Roads Board approved the entry of the company, under the understanding that they were going to handle airplanes or horizontal takeoffs. When they were told about the rocket launches, they rejected it.

“Originally the intention of this company, which the deputy secretary refers to, was the horizontal launch,” he said. “Obviously this horizontal launch was submitted to the community, the community understood it and the board approved it. When the second phase came, which is a vertical launch, it did not receive the same reception from the board.”