Jim Cast
Headquarters, Washington, DC                      August 27, 1999
(Phone:  202/358-1779)

Dom Amatore
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL
(Phone:  256/544-0031)

RELEASE:  99-100

NASA READIES ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STUDY ON X-34 
TESTING IN NEW MEXICO, CALIFORNIA AND FLORIDA

    NASA is finalizing plans to prepare an Environmental Impact 
Statement (EIS) for powered test flights of its X-34 rocket plane, 
scheduled to begin next year.

     In order to carry out X-34 powered flights outside the 
boundaries of existing flight ranges, an Environmental Impact 
Statement is required.  An EIS may also constitute a step toward 
establishing the feasibility and desirability, from an 
environmental perspective, of powered flights involving other, 
future NASA experimental vehicles.  The X-34 EIS process plan 
includes California, New Mexico and Florida as reasonable 
alternative sites to carry out X-34 powered flights or flight 
testing of other future NASA experimental vehicles at some time in 
the future.

     Other states involved in the EIS process are Nevada and Utah, 
which the X-34 would fly over during California-based test 
flights.  Those states also are being evaluated as contingency 
landing sites.  North and South Carolina are being evaluated for 
contingency landings for Florida based flights.  The final test 
plan will not be approved until after the final EIS is issued.

     The first step will be a Notice of Intent published by the 
end of 1999 in the Federal Register.  It will provide the public 
with a summary of all potential flight paths for the experimental 
craft for operations based in those three states.  After the 
notice is published, public meetings will be held in each area 
under consideration.

    "We want public involvement," said Dr. Rebecca McCaleb, 
manager of the Environmental Engineering Department at NASA's 
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL.  "We are very 
interested in ensuring that we evaluate any issues that may exist 
specific to the sites under consideration."

    Marshall manages the X-34 project for NASA.  The unpiloted, 
reusable X-34 is designed to demonstrate technologies and 
operations necessary to cut the cost of putting payloads into 
orbit from $10,000 per pound to $1,000 per pound.


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