Tribal Curse Haunts Launch Pad

[Celebration]

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71249-0.html

An Air Force launch site called SLC-6 (pronounced "Slick-6") at Vandenberg Air Force Base has become legendary in aerospace circles for an eerie history of failed programs and botched launches.

Now on Tuesday, the Boeing Corporation will tempt fate and try to launch a new spy satellite from the unlucky site -- 40 years after the Air Force built the pad over an Indian burial ground in a rocky stretch of California desert.

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According to space historian Robert Ash, construction workers building the pad unearthed human remains from an ancient Chumash Indian burial ground. Members of the tribe asked the Air Force to study the area and move the remains to another location, but the military brass ignored the request and continued construction.

Naturally this angered the Chumash tribe, and, according to local legends, a tribe leader put a curse on the site.