‘NASA North’ or final frontier fantasy?
A Nova Scotia fishing community at a cross roads
When Merle Munroe pulled i nto his driveway, an RCMP officer was waiting for him. “To what do I owe this pleasure?” Munroe asked the officer. He was told he “shouldn’t be up there causing trouble.”
“There” was Guysborough, the next town over from Munroe’s home in Canso. He had heard people there were signing a petition in support of a proposal to build Canada’s first commercial spaceport. In a few years, rockets carrying cargo into orbit could be blasting off about five kilometres from Munroe’s home.
Munroe didn’t think people in Guysborough should have a say in the project, so he drove the nearly 50 kilometres to let them know it. “Say No,” he scrawled below the signatures. “No One up here away from the polution & Chaos of a Rocket launch Should have any thing to Say ( sic).” By the time he was done writing, the man collecting signatures had become “irate,” by Munroe’s description. “I wished him a good day and I left.” The subsequent visit from the officer illustrates how roused residents have become.
Nearly three years ago, American- backed aerospace company Maritime Launch Services ( MLS) swept into Canso with plans it promised would attract clients from around the world to launch satellites into space and breathe new life into the town’s shrinking economy.
Much of this projected boom in the space economy — expected to grow from about US$ 400 billion to more than US$ 1 trillion by 2040 — is pegged to the satellite- launch business; fuelled by demand for omnipresent internet access, the sector is expected to launch 46,100 satellites over the next few years, more than five times the number launched in the past six decades combined.
Tensions in Nova Scotia ratcheted up after the provincial government granted MLS conditional environmental approval, setting it on the path to launch rockets from the shores of Chedabucto Bay as early as 2022.
Its backers see it as an opportunity for Canso — with an employment rate and median income well below national average — to leverage.
“When I started working in economic development here in 1995, the median age in Guysborough was 45 years old. Now it’s 55,” said Gordon Macdonald, economic development director for Guysborough County, Canso’s governing municipality, and one of the spaceport’s biggest proponents. “Our school enrolment is dropping; our population is aging. It’s clear that in the absence of some development, if you simply fast- forward another 10 years, the picture becomes pretty bleak.”
But some Canso residents fear rocket launches will erode their community’s tranquil appeal — and worry their elected officials and bureaucrats aren’t doing enough to ensure MLS and its rocket technology are credible.
The Cyclone- 4M — standing nearly 40 metres high and with a payload capacity of 3,350 kilograms — was never meant to take off from Canso; rather, a series of international conflicts and bureaucratic mishaps put the town on the map for its developers. Yuzhnoye and Yuzhmash, the rocket’s Ukrainian designer and manufacturer, had close commercial ties with Russia. But Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 soured economic relations with the rest of Ukraine.
Ukraine had been in discussions with the Brazilian government about using the Alcantara spaceport, but Brazil kiboshed the project in 2015 after a decade of planning, citing cost and commercial viability. The rocket’s developers needed another client, and set their sights on North America. They teamed up with Santa Maria, Calif.- based aerospace company United Paradyne, aerospace parts and service firm RDO and consultants Silverwing Enterprises, led by aerospace engineer Stephen Matier.
After considering 14 potential host communities, including some in Quebec, Mexico and Hawaii, the group settled on Canso and, with seed funding from United Paradyne, spun out MLS with Matier as its CEO.
Despite its remote location, the 135- hectare site on a swath of provincial Crown land is ideal for a spaceport, Matier said. It is well serviced, with access to water, electricity and paved roads nearby and, thanks to a new wind farm, there was an upto- date environmental assessment ( EA) to reference — all of which would save MLS time and money. Overlooking open ocean, it is far from large populations that could be affected by a launch failure.
Critically, though, according to Matier, the project had early support from politicians and the community. “Even before announcing that we found the spot, we went to meet with the fisheries association, with the Guysborough municipality, with people in the community to find out whether any of this stuff would make sense in their backyard, so to speak,” he said.
Their support hinged largely on the promise of employment. Matier estimates the spaceport will generate about 120 jobs, of which 60 will be permanent and the other half a transient workforce coming in for the eight launches MLS plans each year. “We’ll be directly employing people in the community, by and large, but it’s what’s outside the fence — that’s where the real opportunity is for the community,” he said, painting a picture of a booming tourist town replete with bustling hotels, restaurants and fishing boats chartering tours for ocean viewing of rockets blasting off.
The vision won over local politicians. “This project is an example of the optimism and hope I have for the future of all Nova Scotia, in particular my belief that we can reinvigorate and rebuild communities in rural Nova Scotia,” Nova Scotia Premier Stephen Mcneil wrote in a letter of support.
“Then June 4 happened, and I stopped sleeping,” said Marie Lumsden, a youth educator in town who lives about three kilometres from the proposed launch site.
That was the day Nova Scotia Environment Minister Gordon Wilson granted MLS approval to move forward with its plans, on the condition it provide more detail on a list of concerns, such as its emergency response plan and public consultation process. Soon after, signs began appearing throughout Canso urging the community to oppose the spaceport.
Lumsden and other MLS critics worry the EA wasn’t adequate.
Internal communications viewed by The Logic show Matier had pushed hard for a provincial EA rather than a more robust federal assessment, which he warned Guysborough’s Macdonald would lead to MLS finding another community to host the spaceport.
Jaclyn Sauvé, a spokesperson for the federal environment department, told The Logic that then-environment minister Catherine McKenna had decided against a federal assessment after “analysis of the project and a consideration of the regulatory mechanisms in place to evaluate and mitigate the potential environmental effects of the project.”
The limited EA process has left some in the community concerned about the implications for the health of the people of Canso and the fisheries that sustain the community. They have questions about the technology and fuel MLS plans to use — its rockets include dimethylhydrazine as a propellant in the second stage of launch, a fuel the United States Environmental Protection Agency has deemed a probable carcinogen, and that has been phased out in North America — and they fear the province isn’t equipped to answer them, or to hold the company accountable in the event of an accident.
At an open house in March 2019, Jim Geddes, a local shrimp fisherman, raised concerns about the fuel. An MLS representative told him not to worry. “The response I got was ‘ We’re professionals; we know what we’re doing,’ ” said Geddes. “I took that as being patted on top of the head as a stupid villager.”
Despite the recent space economy boom, Marshall Kaplan, an aerospace engineering professor at the University of Maryland, warns that many launch companies have oversold cities on their power to attract aerospace and other economic opportunities. In 2017, for example, just three of the 10 active U.S. spaceports actually launched anything. “It’s a very competitive market and a risky investment,” he said. “There are already so many launch sites to choose from, so unless they have some unique advantage, it’s going to be tough doing business up there.”
Matier rejects doubts about the viability of the launch business. “Our model is unlike other U. S. spaceports because we are using proven launch technology with minimal development and labour costs,” he said ( the Cyclone- 4M has never been launched). “It’s not at all like any spaceport in the U.S.”
Matier originally pitched the Canso spaceport as a privately funded endeavour. He estimates the capital cost to build it will be $300 million, with each launch adding $ 45 million. The company’s communications with government officials show MLS had trouble attracting early investors. “Yes, we are struggling a bit with the investment part, but remain highly confident this will happen,” wrote United Paradyne CEO Joseph Hasay in a March 2018 email to Macdonald, the Guysborough economic development director.
Around the same time, the company was lobbying the federal government for funding, and a year before that, Matier had requested that the municipality cover the land- lease costs for the first five years, suggesting MLS would pursue a different site if incentives weren’t available, as first reported by the Halifax Examiner. “In the U. S., the sites looking to bring spaceport clients to their area can and do make those kinds of offers,” Matier wrote. “Our one main competing site to Nova Scotia is in Mexico and the Space Agency there is working to put together an infrastructure package that would benefit the spaceport.” Macdonald rejected the request, citing municipal law.
Matier told The Logic that several investors — he declined to name them — have committed financing to MLS, and that he plans to go ahead, with or without government financing.
The project also still needs regulatory approval from the province and from Ottawa, including Global Affairs and Transport Canada.
MLS has pushed its timeline to 2022 and pared back its business case: rather than launching rockets for international clients, it now plans to launch only its own vehicles, eliminating a potential source of revenue.
By the time the town of Canso was absorbed into Guysborough County in 2012, its population had fallen to 806, less than half the number of a century earlier. Proponents of the spaceport worry the trend will continue if the community resists economic opportunities. “You can’t add industry without negative effects, but the cons don’t outweigh the pros,” said Judy Cook, an owner of Canso’s Harbour View Bakery café, and a member of the community liaison committee for the spaceport. “For me, it’s having another industry here. It’s the possibility of jobs, of growth, of keeping our kids from moving away.”
But Lumsden and other opponents worry Matier and local governments have sold the community on a fantasy. “He says we’re going to be NASA North,” she said. “He talks about this workforce we have, but we don’t have two electricians in Canso; we might have one plumber; we can’t fill job vacancies at the hospital. We don’t have the workforce to even do this.
YOU CAN’T ADD INDUSTRY WITHOUT NEGATIVE EFFECTS, BUT THE CONS DON’T OUTWEIGH THE PROS. FOR ME, IT’S HAVING ANOTHER INDUSTRY HERE. IT’S THE POSSIBILITY OF JOBS, OF GROWTH, OF KEEPING OUR KIDS FROM MOVING AWAY.
— JUDY COOK, CANSO RESIDENT