On 26 oct, 00:29, Dan Birchall wrote:
(Yofie) wrote:
*If the French space agency (when looking for a new site for their
*spaceport in the mid-1960s to get away from their existing site in
*Algeria) had not chosen French Guiana in which to put the new
*spaceport, would it have chosen present-day Suriname or Guyana (given
*similar geographies to French Guiana)? *

The collapse of the European colonial empires was certainly poorly
timed for the space race - lots of equatorial territories suddenly
becoming independent, and all that.

Given that Suriname was a Dutch colony and Guyana a British one, I
don't think either would be a good choice for a French spaceport.
If French Guiana were unavailable, one of France's other overseas
"departements" might have been a better choice - perhaps Reunion,
or somewhere in French Polynesia?

If it were something more pan-European like the ESA, though, plenty
more options would open up, including the two you gave.

--
djb@ | Dan Birchall - Observation System Associate - Subaru Telescope.
naoj | Views I express are my own, obviously not those of my employer.
.org | Our atmospheric inversion layer keeps silly people below 3000m.

The problem is, other French colonies like Reunion, Guadeloupe, or
French Polynesia are either too small or too mountainous (or both) to
allow for such facilities. Besides which, the French did investigate
some sites in non-French areas like Brazil, Australia, Sri Lanka,
Trinidad, and Somalia.