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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Vol 35 no. 1. 28 February 1972
Time Mt John Gone
Time Mt John Gone
On November 1968, a U.S. Air Force satelite tracking station became operational at Mt. John, near Lake Tekapo. It is built on land leased from the University of Canterbury, and receive in return approximately $25,000 annually.
The Mt. John Tracking stations real purposes appear to be military, as much as anything else, and the station is therefore another installation on N.Z. land for the 'Defence' of the U.S.A. Washdyke - Mt. John Committee has been formed to organize protest, especially against Canterbury University's lease agreement with the U.S.A.F.
This Committee is organising a demonstration at Mt. John on the weekend of March 11th-12th. What follows is a summary of the functions of the Mt. John tracking station.
Negotiations between the U.S.A.F. and the N.Z. Government (in which the university also participated) began in September 1966, but these were not made public until 4th July 1968, only 4 days before an agreement was signed and only 8 days before tenders for construction were called.
A baker Nunn tracking camera is used at Mt. John to photograph satellites. Thes photos are then orocessed and the satellite positions are measured from the photos. This information is tabulated and passed to the base communications room, whose security precautions tend to be at a military rather than of a scientific nature. Only the communications operators and maintenance men (four in all) have routine access. Anyone (including other officers) else is carefully vetted before being allowed [unclear: a].
[unclear: a] 1970, Canta representatives were allowed a brief glimpse into this room, and are apparently the only New Zealanders to have seen it. Canta was told that the reasons for these security precautions were that the teleprinters inside, fed directly into a computer in Colorado, and were [unclear: irtually] part of the computer. So that an understanding of their mode of operation would reveal details of the computer, which had to remain sec-[unclear: et], obviously. The detachment commander also [unclear: tated] in a Christchurch Star interview (30.4.70) [unclear: hat] "like any military installation, if the time [unclear: came] when we had to abandon it in case of emer-[unclear: ency] then precautions would be taken to destroy equipment"
Also, the base can operate independent of N.Z. [unclear: utillities], using its own diesel generator. Its water supply is pumped 1000ft up from Lake Tekapo and is clorinated and filtrated, possibly to prevent chemical and bacteriological sabotage. Twenty thousand gallons of water are stored within the [unclear: base] itself- enough to keep the base operational [unclear: for] at least a month, as only 12 men staff it at a one time.
[unclear: Mt]. John is operated by Detachment one at the [unclear: 8th] surveillance squadron of the 14th Aerospace Defence force of the Aerospace Defence Command the ADC exists to defend the U.S. against enemy [unclear: missiles] and aircraft, and recieves its basic information from various electronic (ie: radar) and [unclear: optical] systems, among which is the spacetrack system, whose primary function is the tracking [unclear: of] all objects placed into orbit. It's optical sensors [unclear: Baker] Nunn cameras) are located at Edwards Air [unclear: Force] Base, California, Sand Island, Pacific Ocean, [unclear: Jupiter], Florida and on Mt. John, New Zealand.
Spacetrack" is a part of the "Space Detection and [unclear: racking] System" (Spadats). Data from which [unclear: fed] into the Air Defence systems nerve centre [unclear: cated] 1400ft beneath Mt. Cheyenne, Colorado, [unclear: hich] controls deployment of America's nuclear [unclear: eaponry] including the anti satellite defence sys-[unclear: em], "a land based missile system which is capable [unclear: f] interception and destruction of armed sat-[unclear: llites]."
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Demonstration against U.S. Military Bases in N.Z.