I’m starting off this entry in an area I shouldn’t be in - the Narado Space Center. In several hours, Korea is supposed to launch it’s first rocket from it’s own launching facility. Narado is an island accessible by bridge, but today, there are several roadblocks staffed by police and military (with automatic weapons at the ready), turning people away from getting anywhere closer than about 9 km.
This launch has been delayed at least 3 times so far, and much of the country was anticipating this big leap into the Big Boys Space Club, up until a couple of days ago. That’s when a hugely popular ex-president, Kim Dae-Jong, died. (BTW, almost all Korean names start with the family/last name, and follow with a hyphenated first name. The two most common Korean family names are Kim and Lee – like Smith and Jones.) Kim was more or less the JFK of Korea, in it’s relatively short few decades of democratic elections.
Anyway, DJ’s (as he is affectionally known) death really put a damper on the launch. The right wing president, Lee Myun-Bak was supposed to be here in the very building I’m in right now, but it was decided that it wouldn’t be appropriate timing, since the nation is in mourning right now. There was considerable debate in the last few days about whether to postpone the launch yet again, but given that typhoon season is right around the corner, they decided to go ahead with it. As I look out of the window, I see the flags at half mast.
As I’ve mentioned in previous entries, Korea has launched several satellites before, but from other countries (mostly Russia). Lee has made joining the space club a priority for Korea and his administration, so a lot is riding on this. In order to pull this off, Korea entered into a partnership with Russia, to develop their first homemade launch vehicle. Lately, and especially after the multiple delays, a number of critics have been grumbling out loud that Russia is just using Korea to test out it’s own latest design in rocket engines, so if this launch is delayed again, it may get real ugly.
At this moment, I’m sitting in a cafeteria of the Space Museum, which is a large building sitting at the foot of the hill where the launch pad is, about 1 km away. The Space Museum is normally open to the public, but today only launch personnel and media, along with a few special invited guests are here. Everyone has a yellow ribbon, except yours truly. I’m just waiting for the police or military to yank me out of the chair. But I find the key to doing sneaky things is to simply look like you belong there, and act as if you have every right to be with others. I’m sitting here, typing on my laptop, so that in itself makes me look like I fit in, to some extent (I’m surrounded by geeks). But as the only non-Asian in the room, with a Hawaiin shirt on top of that, I do stick out. I keep my head down, and am so far, I am unmolested.
All I want to do is watch and video the launch – OK, I also want to get out of the muggy heat into a nice air conditioned room too (the weather outside is hot and clear – a good launch forecast). I certainly won’t be able to get up to the launch pad, but I’m about 9 km closer than I thought I would get. Just to be clear, I didn’t go through any roadblocks illegally. I simply found some back roads that got around them. And once you get this close, people assume you belong here.
Now it’s interesting to note that there are numerous Russians in Narado, who are brought here to work on the rocket, and look identical to North Americans. Narado, which is a very small town (maybe 2,000 people live here) is about 8 km north of the Space Center (which encompasses the launch pad and the museum). It’s also in Goheung-gun (county of Goheung), and I live in the city of Goheung, the largest population center of the county (about 15,000) and about 35 km NW of Narado.
The Russians, the total of who between 40-60, mostly stay in Narado. But they do occasionally venture out to other parts of the county, including my city. A few weeks ago, 2 busloads of them pulled up the bank I was about to use, and about 40 of them piled out and filled the smallish lobby – right in front of me. I could have sworn they were Americans, except that their English sounded almost exactly like Russian. In any case, there wasn’t a smile amongst them, and although I wanted to strike up a conversation with them, they seemed quite unapproachable – so I kept my one word of Russian to myself, and headed to another branch of the bank.
A week before that, I met a couple of Russians on a ferry to another island, and I spoke to one of them. He said (in pretty good English) that many of them are here for two years. I didn’t get much more from him than that. I sense that they may not be too happy here – but I really don’t know.
One of the reasons I bring that up is because many Koreans in this room/building may assume I’m Russian. With my beard, mustache and Eastern European heritage, it’s not a far stretch. So maybe that’s why they’re not coming to take me away – they’re too embarrassed to potentially arrest a necessary, if not poorly dressed co-worker.
Well, it’s about 20 minutes before the scheduled launch time, and I’m out on the rocks with others, trying to get the best view. Next to the ocean, I’m listening to the gentle waves caressing the boulders a few feet away from me, as I hear the light conversations of those around me. A number have professional looking cameras as they perch on the precarious rocks, who are no doubt media. Others include families having a picnic on a large rock, hoping they can say they actually witnessed the first Korean space launch. The number of people perched grows by the minute.
From my particular vantage point, the space museum is out of sight, and all I see is the sea as it wears down this rocky coastline (most of the Korean coastline – which is quite substantial, is like this). So it’s an odd contrast, this beautiful sight, smell and sound of primordial nature, as we all await something quite unnatural, yet momentous happen.
OK, it’s 4 hours later, I’m home and exhausted. As the title suggests, the launch was a bust. For reasons they still haven’t made public, they stopped the launch 7 minutes before liftoff. Nothing about when it will be rescheduled – certainly not tomorrow, nor probably the next. As I understand, they only gave themselves a one week launch window, so who knows if this is really going to happen. I found out that today was actually the seventh delay – so people are growing frustrated. It may be that S. Korea is not ready for the Big Boys Club yet.
