COLUMN ONE : Houston, We Have a Bird Nest : Although woodpeckers forced NASA to scrub a shuttle takeoff, space and nature usually manage to live together--however uneasily--at launch site next to wildlife sanctuary.

For NASA Test Director Steve Altemus, walking into a Wal-Mart and plunking down cash to buy six plastic owls was his oddest mission yet for the nation’s space program.

Unless you count the festive red and silver streamers that he ordered to be tied to the shuttle Discovery’s colossal launch platform. Or his ruminations about which of the $40 painted Mylar balloons--the “Predator Eyes” or the “Terror Eyes”--would be scariest to birds and the hardiest in Florida’s tropical winds.

At the Kennedy Space Center, some of the world’s most skilled engineers have found themselves relying on such admittedly desperate schemes to ward off space shuttle saboteurs of the natural kind.

When one or two woodpeckers gouged 195 holes--some as large as baseballs--in the outer insulation of the Discovery’s external fuel tank, forcing the June 8 launch to be scrubbed, it was the most costly conflict yet between wildlife and operations at the sprawling facility. But it was nowhere near the first time that NASA engineers had to cope with wild animals.

Florida’s spaceport is home to more endangered and threatened species than any wildlife sanctuary in the United States. In 1963, when the agency acquired the barrier island the world knows as “the Cape,” land that was nonessential to NASA operations was set aside as the Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge and the Canaveral National Seashore.

With its unusual blend of salt marshes, mangrove-lined shorelines and woodlands of scrub oak and old-growth pine, the 220-square-mile preserve harbors an eclectic mix of more than 500 varieties of animals.

Many of the rarest creatures live in harmony with the Space Age, even in the “blast danger area” within three miles of the twin launch pads where humans are banned during takeoffs. Rare loggerhead turtles lay their eggs on beaches half a mile from the blastoff points. For more than 25 years, bald eagles have raised chicks in an old pine tree a few miles away, so close that the ground shakes during launches.

Still, in the past three months, wildlife and space center operations have clashed 62 times, about once every workday, according to the refuge’s logs.

In NASA jargon, wild animals often become FOD, “foreign object debris.” A bat invades the operations building. An alligator suns itself on the road where shuttles are hauled to the launch pads. An osprey builds a nest on a crane. One wildlife biologist had to don a special suit and crawl into the shuttle Columbia’s mid-level crew deck to hunt for a wayward bird.

Most of the encounters are minor nuisances, frequently involving alligators. But the severity of the Discovery’s damage shows that if a creature as elusive as a woodpecker can disable a shuttle on its launch pad, there may be no reasonable way that NASA, with all its technology, can stop it.

But it is more common for NASA operations to jeopardize wildlife than the other way around. A great horned owl and three chicks were killed in March by the shuttle Endeavour’s takeoff. After each launch, small numbers of common, minnow-like fish in ponds half a mile from the pad die of acidic shuttle exhaust, and whenever the spaceport adds or expands a building, it often chews up habitat of the endangered Florida scrub jay.

In the 1960s, before environmental laws were enacted, the Kennedy Space Center was largely responsible for the extinction of the dusky seaside sparrow by building dikes on marshes to control mosquitoes.

The space center does take “many noteworthy” steps to accommodate its wild neighbors and comply with environmental laws, said Don Palmer, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist who has negotiated with NASA for 15 years whenever space projects affect endangered species.

Ships built to retrieve giant booster rockets from the ocean via the shallow Banana River were equipped with water jets, not propellers, to protect the refuge’s 400 manatees, the largest remaining population of Florida’s beloved, endangered, walrus-like sea mammals.

When the launch pads’ blinding lights shined so brightly on the beach that newly hatched loggerhead sea turtles climbed up the dune toward the shuttle and died--instead of safely following moonlight to the ocean, NASA switched to less-disorienting bulbs.

When trees containing rookeries grew so tall that they blocked special visitors’ views of the launch sites, NASA moved the VIPs instead of breaking out the chain saws.

And when a space station complex built last year destroyed 26 acres of scrub jay habitat, NASA agreed to remove citrus groves and plant three acres of scrub for every acre that was destroyed.

“We feel like we have struck a balance between one of the most technologically advanced activities and one of the most ecologically sensitive areas in the country,” said Burt Summerfield, Kennedy Space Center’s pollution control officer. “We represent a model for industry coexisting with a very natural, pristine environment.”

In the base’s 32-year history--including 69 shuttle launches--the death of the owls was the worst reported damage to the refuge’s wildlife.

The mother owl built her nest on a metal tray holding a cable 135 feet up on the launch platform. Workers had seen the owl, but not the nest, so they thought it would fly away before takeoff. Afterward, they found the bodies of three chicks in the nest, probably killed by vibrations, and the mother dead on the ground. Animal lovers in the community were outraged.

“We feel as bad about that as anyone, but in all the time NASA has been here, that’s the first wildlife fatality of that magnitude,” said Kathy Whaley, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s assistant manager of the Merritt Island refuge.

“People were very upset,” she said, “but look at the big picture. If NASA wasn’t here, none of this habitat would be here at all.”

One of the last undeveloped stretches of Florida beachfront, the property, if privately owned, would have been converted decades ago into the high-rise condos and low-slung strip malls that transformed the state’s Atlantic Coast. Instead, miles of untouched shoreline are closed to the public by NASA security.

Scrub jays--friendly, fearless blue and gray birds that eat peanuts from people’s hands--live a mile from a launch pad and landing strip. They rely on head-high oak scrub that Whaley called “high, dry and easy to develop.” If it were not for the Kennedy Space Center, she said, the birds could be extinct.

So far, the jays seem unfazed by the smoke, exhaust and noise from the shuttles and Air Force Titan missiles. Biologists in several studies found no discernible post-launch effect on their foraging, breeding or hearing.

“We’ve spent a lot of time and effort looking at the impacts after launches,” Summerfield said. “We have not had a recorded death of a threatened or endangered species after a launch.”

Environmentalists keep a watchful eye on the space center, but they accept the dual economic-ecological role that NASA plays in this region dubbed the Space Coast. Even the president of the local National Audubon Society chapter works at a shuttle launch pad.

When it comes to environmental sensitivity, especially about endangered species, several Fish and Wildlife Service officials said they prefer to work with the space center than with many private landowners and industries.

A team of biologists serves as consultants to NASA, and employees routinely call refuge managers any time their work conflicts with a wild animal--or vice versa. The spaceport’s tug and security boat operators undergo special training to safeguard the Banana River manatees.

“Early on, in the early ‘80s, there was a learning curve there,” said Michael Bentzien, assistant field supervisor with the Fish and Wildlife Service office in Florida. “But everyone’s well beyond that now. There are tensions, like there always are with groups with different missions, but it’s worked reasonably well.”

A few days after the woodpeckers stopped the massive launch operation, Altemus was asked how well the spaceport coexists with its wild creatures. “Not too well lately, “ said the harried NASA test director, who spent last week scurrying around in search of anti-woodpecker devices.

Bird experts around the country are puzzled over what attracted two northern flicker woodpeckers to the Discovery’s $50-million external tank, a towering, orange cylinder. Some speculate that when the owls, their main predator, were killed three months ago, the mating pair moved to the launch pad to try to build a nest. But because the tank’s foam insulation is less than two inches thick, the birds--mostly the male but perhaps the female also--kept striking metal, then moved to try again.

A few holes were discovered the Thursday before Memorial Day, but the NASA team figured that repairs could wait until the next Tuesday. When they arrived that morning, May 30, they saw that the woodpeckers, over the quiet holiday weekend, had punched many more holes, including some 150 feet above the ground near the top of the tank. Aghast engineers watched videotape showing one flicker pounding like a jackhammer on a single spot near the tip for eight minutes, flecks of foam flying in all directions.

“I’ve seen them tear siding off a house,” said Bentzien of the Fish and Wildlife Service, “and I’m talking expensive homes. I’ve seen them totally remove all the cedar around big plate-glass windows.”

As they surveyed the damage, NASA engineers realized the danger: With holes in the insulation, ice could form on the fuel tank and chip off, cracking the Discovery’s fragile protective tiles like the shells on M & M candies, jeopardizing the astronauts’ fiery re-entry. “Total panic” is how Whaley describes Altemus’ mood when he called the day after Memorial Day seeking advice on how to prevent another woodpecker rampage.

Scrambling to beat the countdown, workers perched atop 250-foot cranes swaying in ocean winds repaired the damage. But they soon realized there were so many holes and the winds were so perilous that they had no choice but to scrub the launch and haul the shuttle back to the cavernous assembly building atop a gigantic steel crawler.

Because the whole bundle weighs 17 million pounds, the 4.2 miles from the launch pad to the building took eight hours, consumed 420 gallons of diesel fuel, tied up at least 20 employees and cost about $45,000. Then after a crew spent several days sealing the holes with adhesive and foam, the time-consuming trip was made in reverse last Thursday to return the shuttle to its pad for a rescheduled July 13 launch. Every day the Discovery sits on the ground, TRW Inc., which owns a satellite inside, loses money.

With the Discovery exposed to the elements for at least 3 1/2 more weeks, the massive metal platform has been festooned with every imaginable bird deterrent recommended by everyone from gardeners to ornithologists--the plastic owls, vinyl streamers and yellow Mylar balloons painted with owl eyes made by a Chicago firm named Bird-X. Cardboard placards of a cat silhouette are en route from a company in Australia.

Mechanical “chirpers” designed to drive off birds are instead driving the NASA workers nuts. Two men are assigned bird-watching duty with a clipboard and air horns.

Mounting a high-priority search for solutions more reliable and permanent, Altemus and his colleagues--satirizing NASA’s flair for acronyms--dubbed their mission BIRD: the Bird Investigation, Review and Deterrent team.

“You have to have a sense of humor about this, despite the seriousness of it,” Altemus said. “I’ll tell you this, we are very serious about making sure it doesn’t happen again.”

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Co-Existing With Wildlife

Many species live within NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, some of them close to the shuttle launching pads, including the endangered or threatened species shown below.

1) Scrub Jay

2) Sea Turtles

3) Bald Eagle

4) Manatee

Source: NASA and Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge