OCR Text |
Show DESERET NEWS - 20 August 1971 Athena H missile rests on pad prior to being raised for firing. Missiles And Melons Pay By ARNOLD IRV1NE '. Associate Business Editor GREEN RIVER, Emery ('ounty - "All Green River v-'atermelons are good," de-dared the farmer as tourists thumped the fruit in his roadside, stand. He was doing business on the outskirts of this sun-baked "suburb" of the White Sands Missile Range Utah Launch Complex. 1 Although Green River mel-jpns .are indeed famous and hre trucked to market in Utah And surrounding states, the liaunch Complex exports a product that brings the real money into this desert oasis. .The product? Missiles. They're launched from pads on the 18,181-acre area just east of town, roar 400 miles southeast and crunch to earth at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, about half-way between Albuquerque and El Paso,. Tex. Possibly the two Athena Missiles launched at the complex today and last Friday were worth, more than ail of the melons shipped from Green River, in the last 30 years. The Athenas cost about $900,000 apiece, according to Capt. George L. Dickey, assistant deputy for naval applications, Air Force office of the deputy for re-entry systems. The Department of Defense spent some $9 million on the Athena program in the past year and a good chunk of that amount was pumped into the Green River economy. Even the towns of Price and Moab, received some of the money since some persons living in those places are employed at the Launch Complex. They commute the 50 or so miles to the job. Salt Lake County, a hundred miles to the northwest, also gets a healthy share of the Athena money through Hercules, Incorporated's Bacchus Works where the X-259 and BE-3 motors used in the Athena H • and standard Athena are built. Some 130 Athenas have been fired from the complex since the program started. Eight to 10 more shots are planned in the next year. The Athenas are strictly test vehicles and carry no war heads. They are used in the development of re-entry systems and components, Dickey explained. The results of the tests are used -by the various agencies involved in missile and space programs. A total of 225 persons are employed at the complex. The. annual payroll is over $2 million, said A. Murray Maughan, civilian chief of the ity. One of the incidental benefits of the program to about a half-dozen families living ill the path of the missiles zooming from the Complex to White Sands is the evacuation program. Each time a missile is fired, the families are evacuated from their homes or hogans for a 12-hour period. For this inconvenience they are paid - §12 per adult and $6 per child. |