Will the island of Biak, in Indonesian Papua, eventually host a space base? In any case, this is the wish of the Indonesian government. “Geographically, Biak is the ideal place for the construction of a spaceport”, declared General Moeldoko, Chief of Staff to President Joko Widodo, on March 29, 2022, in Jakarta.
The Indonesian weekly Time reports that in October 2021, the Indonesian National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (Lapan) carried out an investigation with the China Great Wall Industry Corporation – the Chinese state-owned company responsible for driving the cooperations companies in space technology – to find the best location. This would be the locality of Saukobye, in the district of Biak, considered ideal because it is located very close to the equator (which allows rockets to save fuel on take-off) and directly on the seafront facing the Pacific Ocean, with no small or large islands nearby. Only problem, underlines the magazine, the villagers do not want this spaceport on their ancestral lands, located in the heart of a protected forest.
In Indonesian Papua, the desire for independence has been met with fierce repression for decades. The Free Papua Organization (OPM) has been waging an armed rebellion since 1969, when the western part of the island of Papua was incorporated into the Indonesian Republic in a disputed referendum. Since 1980, the island of Biak has been a zone of military operations.
Engineers instead of cleaners
According to clan chief Marthen Abrauw, the inhabitants of Saukobye were forced to sign a letter renouncing their land rights in favor of the Lapan: “Those who refused were stigmatized as opponents of development and considered members of the OPM.” Lis men from the Abrauw clan refused to sign, but a neighboring clan ceded 100 hectares which would in fact be part of the Abrauw customary forest.
After the abandonment of a first project by the American company E’ Prime Aerospace in the 1990s, the Indonesian government had proposed, in 2020, to the company of Elon Musk SpaceX to invest in Biak. But the latter, which already has a base in the United States, would have declined.
“However, highlighted Time, Indonesia has not given up on its idea, because the SpaceX company is now developing intercontinental rocket flights. For this, it needs a place from which to take off and where to land in Asia. Indonesia is considered to have the best potential to realize this idea.”
Herry Ario Naap, head of the Biak Numfor district, has already confirmed that in 2023 a road will be built leading to the site of the future spaceport. Asked by Time, he already dreams of sending the children of his constituency to study astronomy in major universities: “When they come back to Biak, they will work as engineers at the space base, not as cleaners.”