I'm procrastinating again .... but thought I would do some preliminary investigations on Polynesian space activities. I started with Fiji, a random choice, and found little available. A couple of interesting leads to follow though: Mir debris collected from the beaches, satellite television developments and rocket mail. In the early 1900s, rockets were used to deliver mail from the ship to the shore on one of the Fijian islands. The main reference for this seems to be:
Kronstein, Max 1986 Rocket Mail Flights of the World to 1986 The American Air Mail Society
I'm not especially interested in rocket mail, but it was a theme that continued after WW II, with a popular children's author writing a book on rocket postal services from Woomera.
Also in my investigations this morning I came across a reference to boy scout rocket launches. This is in direct line with my interest in amateur/public space programmes, so must definitely follow it up.
Not quite Polynesia in the strictest sense, but I take it you're aware of the US facility in the Marshall Islands and the old Chinese site in Kiribati? The latter was closed during a 2003 diplomatic spat over Kiribati's recognition of Taiwan.
ReplyDeleteKnew about Marshall Islands, but not the Chinese one - this sounds very interesting! Thanks -
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