Prospects for the continued operation of the US High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) became dire last June, when its owner, the Air Force Research Laboratory, switched off the lights. HAARP is the world’s most powerful high-frequency (HF) transmitter. A few experiments are planned this spring by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). “If no one pulls a rabbit out of the hat, that will probably be the end,” says David Hysell, a Cornell University atmospheric scientist who is part of DARPA’s HAARP collaboration.
On 26 February, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) hosted a meeting for federal agencies to consider HAARP’s future. Representatives attended from the Department of Defense, NASA, NSF, and Los Alamos National Laboratory. The aim was for the agencies jointly to either seek a solution to keep HAARP open or purposefully shut it, rather than let the Air Force...
