Brazil, famous worldwide for its wild and colorful Mardi Gras celebrations, will eventually be known as a hot spot for something even more out of this world: space business.
Last week, Brazil sealed its entry into the global space race by signing a landmark deal with the United States that could turn its fledgling space base into one the world’s top satellite launch sites.
"This is something worth celebrating," U.S. Ambassador to Brazil Anthony Harrington said last week in response to the treaty.
American companies are expected to consider the base, called Alcantara, as an alternative to other equatorial satellite-launching sites -- such as the Kourou base in French Guiana. Of the world’s 17 launch sites – of which eight allow commercial launches – Brazil is closest to the equator.
The Lexington, Massachusetts aerospace company is building a sophisticated web of sensory and communication devices – including satellites, surveillance aircraft and dozens of radar systems – that will monitor the 3.1 million square miles (8 million square kilometers) of the Amazon.
Brazilian military officials, who will run the program, hope that this network will allow them to detect when illegal gold miners fly into the area and when drug traffickers smuggle their cache through the jungle.
For decades, Brazilian officials have struggled to monitor the forest, but have been hampered because of the lack of technology and manpower.
When officials first entertained the idea of surveillance of the region in the 1980s, it put together a small $600 million plan to install radar stations in three villages to monitor air traffic. But by 2002, there promises to be a highly sophisticated system of platforms, sensors, computers and processing centers.
"Brazil has been crying out for this type of telecommunications," said John Logsdon, director of George Washington University's Space Policy Institute.
When the project was first awarded to Raytheon in 1994, allegations surfaced that a company executive had bribed Brazilian government officials to win the contract. What ensued was three years of investigations by the Brazilian Congress that eventually debunked the charges.
Most believe that this probe was backlash by a suspicious public. Since the inception of the project, there have been numerous press reports on the United States and other countries trying to take over the Amazon by being able to control the area with a vast surveillance network.
"It does seem like a version of big brother," Logsdon said.
But Greg Vuksich, president of Raytheon Brazil, said that public opinion seems to have turned around.
"I think the general feel is one of expectation, he said. "The public is looking forward to the possibility of seeing what is going on in the Amazon."
While SIVAM, long believed to be a mostly military project, will allow the country to keep its borders in check with a giant air-traffic control system, it will also help address cultural and environmental concerns in the basin.
"The most powerful part of the program is gathering all of the information and providing one of the world’s largest environmental databases," Lockheed’s Vuksich said.
Using weather and imagery satellite receivers, environmental sensors, surveillance aircraft and weather radars, it will help protect the 300 species of mammals, 1,400 types of fish and 1,300 kinds of birds that inhabit the area.
"Its a positive initiative," said Ruy Goes, Amazon Campaigner for the environmental group Greenpeace in Sao Paolo, Brazil. But he pointed out that there may be a lack of funds for infrastructure to create access to isolated areas. "We would like a more open discussion on the money being spent," he said.
SIVAM has begun setting up line-of-site radio links and satellite communications to help connect isolated communities.
The satellites will be able to connect its indigenous population living in the jungle with law enforcement officials when they come under attack.
The Yanomami Indians, who until the 1970s lived in the rainforest without contact with modern civilization, are increasingly facing attacks from those who want to mine and log their resources, and who claim that the reserves add up to "a lot of land for very few Indians."
The project will also help curb the epidemic of such diseases as measles, malaria and tuberculosis by building a telecommunications network that will enable towns to quickly contact authorities when an outbreak begins. It will then allow authorities to dispatch medical teams to the area.
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