European spaceport's sky-high ambition

[Rick]

Jean Yves Le Gall is looking into a huge hole.

He is content, however, because this is just the right kind of depression compared with the one his Arianespace company was contemplating just a few years ago.

This is the fire bowl, recently dug from granite, that will deflect the exhaust plume and noise away from a Soyuz rocket as the Russian vehicle lifts clear of the launch gantry on its maiden voyage from the Kourou spaceport next year.

More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7278409.stm