NASA’s Kennedy Space Center could soon be under water due to global warming.
Sea levels are rising and the multi-billion dollar complex is already seeing the effects of climate change. It appears, the land under the center is slowly sinking into the ocean. The Space Center in Florida may have to abandon some of its launchpads and facilities within a decade.
NASA partnering with the U.S. Geological Survey has been doing research on erosion happening along a 6-mile stretch of beach between the iconic launch pads 39A and 39B which have been used for the Apollo missions to the moon and many space shuttle flights.
The majority of NASA’s facilities are located at the edge of the sea for logistical reasons. If failures happened, they would be less dangerous to the public when launching rockets or testing spacecrafts over water.
Experts predict that the sea levels in the area of Kennedy Space Center will rise between 5 to 8 inches by 2050 and another 10 or 15 inches by 2080.
The problem has been occurring for years but now it seems to be growing worse. When the space center was founded in the 1960s, architects and scientists were well aware that the sea level was rising and could some day pose a threat. The problem has been ignored until recently. Geologists studying Cape Canaveral’s beach say the impact became most apparent after hurricane Sandy struck Florida in 2004.
Dunes that historically protected the Space Center from high seas were leveled during tropical storms and hurricanes between 2008 and 2011. Later, NASA built new dunes to replace the natural ones that were lost.
NASA is taking the problem seriously and has plans for dealing with it, according to Nancy P. Bray, director of the Center Operations at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Roads, facilities and even launch pads would be moved.