Originally published at National Catholic Register
Located 947 miles from the North Pole in northwest Greenland, the Pituffik Space Base is the northernmost installation of the U.S. armed forces.
Once a hunting village for the Greenlandic Inuit, Pituffik lies in the Arctic tundra where winter temperatures plunge to -20°F. Separated by 75 miles from the nearest town, Qaanaaq, it is defined by its extreme isolation. In addition, during the long winter months, the sun never rises.
Not far from the geomagnetic North Pole, the U.S. Space Base is strategically placed for “space surveillance, satellite control, and early missile detection,” Father John Reutemann, an active-duty chaplain in the U.S. Air Force, currently stationed in Osan, South Korea, told the Register.
The base works with “early” missile detection, he explained, “because any missiles coming to the U.S. from Russia or China would likely fly over the Arctic.”
Father Reutemann noted, with only “about 150 U.S. military personnel stationed there for a one-year tour and about 450 others — Danish military, Canadian military and Greenlandic contractors” — plus a shortage of active duty Catholic military chaplains, the assigned chaplain at the base is a Protestant pastor.
However, for the past 25 years, the U.S. Air Force has flown a
