You got the URL right. Still can't figure out my HTML didn't work.

Yes, Palmrya would have been a good choice. Gotta watch the militant eco-Nazis, though. Beal had problems in the Caribbean and in South America partly due to their "concerns", though it's a moot point now. (Note: militant eco-Naizs and environmentalists are NOT necessarily the same breed.)

The great thing about Nauru is because of a century of phosphate mining, the island is ALREADY an environmental disaster. I don't think there are any native species of plants, birds or insects to be threatened. A spaceport definitely couldn't do much worse to the local "ecology" and the island, 90% uninhabitable, isn't really good for anything else. The interior of the island has no vegetative cover whatsoever, which means during the daytime there is very strong heat convection which keeps the skies cloud-free, making solar power possibly viable. Imagine that - a solar-powered spaceport, the energy used to purify and electrolyze ocean water into LH2/LOX and also desalinate seawater for drinking! (Nauru suffers periodic droughts - good public health angle.) The nearest land mass is Banaba or Ocean Island (another phosphate depository) in Kiribati, several hundred miles to the east, so launch corridors don't go over populated areas. Nauru is out of main shipping lanes and cyclone corridors as well, I believe

Did you consider Nauru in the 1980s, Mr Brosz? At that time, phosphate mining and export was still in full swing and the government was getting rich from the royalties, so you might have said "Pass". Now the phosphate is mostly gone, so there are underused or abandoned mining and transport facilities and other infrastructure, like an airport, railway and port including cantilever loaders, which may be useful if retooled and re-employed. The government's also desperate for new income sources and would be quite receptive I think. Nauru has attempted to become a major offshore banking center, but unfortunately, after billions in economic aid to Russia apparently went through Nauruan banks instead into Swiss bank accounts, the OECD has recommended reprimanding Nauru for its lax anti-money laundering laws.

Anyway, Nauru seems better than most islands on offer. The Australian government has already offered to relocate the 10,000 residents to one of its own island territories, since Nauru is pretty marginal already, so Nauru may soon be sold to the highest bidder.

What do you think?