Feb 1 1998
From The Space Library
One thousand Puerto Ricans protested against NASA's plans to launch, from a nature preserve in Puerto Rico, suborbital rockets filled with chemicals. The Coqui Dos program planned the launch to measure high-level winds and turbulence in the upper atmosphere. Coqui Dos continued the El Coqui program of 1992, part of NASA's Suborbital Sounding Rocket program, which launched 25 sounding rockets annually from locations worldwide. Because the rockets would disperse aluminum trimethol before crashing into the sea, the protesters demanded that NASA produce studies proving that the launch would not damage the environment. The mayor of Vega Baja led the protest outside the entrance to the Tortuguero Recreation Area, the section of the nature preserve where the rocket launches would take place, threatening to sue NASA to force it to release environmental impact studies from the 1992 launch.
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