Florida man hopes to save space race relic
MELBOURNE BEACH, Fla. — An Air Force telescopic tracking station helped engineers monitor ascending rockets during the Mercury, Gemini, Apollo and shuttle eras.
And for decades its domed roof served as a roadside landmark for travelers on highway A1A.
Crews dismantled the salt-spray-corroded facility seven years ago. Today, segments of the disassembled dome still lie in the grass across the highway alongside oleander and scrub, lashed down with a white rope.
But not for long. Melbourne Beach officials have set a Jan. 31 deadline for the owner, Bob Nolan, 84, to move the space race relic elsewhere. Nolan and others fear the 1,100-pound curved contraption will get sold as scrap metal or trucked to the dump.
"We don't want it destroyed. We don't want a negative to happen," said Nolan, a retired Air Force captain who has championed the dome-preservation campaign.
"My goal is, because this is such an important piece of history, that we preserve this for future generations," Nolan said.
Dome pieces and associated hardware sit idle a stone's throw from the Melbourne Beach Old Town Hall History Center. Brevard County owns this property. The town leases the museum site.
Grassroots plans to put the locally nicknamed "Radome" on public display have never come to fruition.
Nolan, county and town officials have spent years discussing Radome reconstruction and maintenance costs, hurricane liability risks, pouring an 18-by-18-foot concrete pad, launching a "Friends of the Tracking Dome" fundraising organization, engineering studies, permitting and zoning matters.
On Dec. 17, the Melbourne Beach Town Commission voted 4-1 to discontinue further efforts on the dome project. Mayor Jim Simmons, who worked in the space program for 33 years, cast the dissenting vote.
Last week, Town Manager Jamie Titcomb issued Nolan the dome-removal deadline. After Jan. 31, Melbourne Beach code enforcement officials will relocate the dome to an undetermined location, Titcomb said.
Nolan, who took ownership of the dome in December 2012, responded by claiming that the town would owe him $37,343 if the dome is destroyed.
Chuck Least, a New York snowbird who is helping Nolan with the dome restoration project, and Crystal Cain, a Melbourne Beach History Center Board member, hope a "caretaker organization" hears of the Radome's plight and reassembles the semicircular structure elsewhere to educate the public.
The Melbourne Beach tracking station was part of the Eastern Range communications network.
Inside the dome, a telescope with a 24-inch aperture took high-resolution photos of objects in space.
The telescope itself is now displayed at the Air Force Space & Missile Museum at Patrick Air Force Base.
The original dome was likely installed between 1950 and 1955, Cain said. The Radome was a replacement that was used throughout the shuttle era.
Demolition workers cut the dome into eight slices while razing the tracking station. Cain said startled history center visitors have spotted rattlesnakes amid these stacked segments.
Neale also reports for Florida Today