States rush to build spaceports — again

The rush to build commercial space hubs is spurred by entrepreneurs who want to send rich passengers into suborbital space — a region about 60 miles above Earth. Several will build their rockets this summer with tentative plans to fly as early as next year pending regulatory approval.

New Mexico, which inked a deal with Virgin Galactic last year to construct a $225 million spaceport on 27 square miles of desert, is expected to select a winning architectural design from six entries on June 2.

While details of the spaceport designs are secret until a winner is chosen, tentative plans call for a complex built mostly underground. The facility, which would be funded by a mix of federal, state and local money, could open in late 2009. Virgin would have a 20-year lease on the facility.

Until then, Virgin Galactic, founded by British mogul Richard Branson, plans to fly the first passengers from California's Mojave Airport, where the Rutan-designed SpaceShipOne became the first privately manned rocketship to reach space in 2004.

Outside the seven government-run launch ranges, the Mojave hosts one of five nonfederal licensed spaceports in the U.S. that serve both commercial and government interests. The nonfederal ports are either state or privately operated.

Bill Curry / AP This photo provided by the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority shows an aerial view of the Oklahoma Spaceport's 13,503-foot concrete runway, one of the longest in North America, near Burns Flat, Okla.

Another space tourism operator, Rocketplane Kistler, wants to launch from the Oklahoma Spaceport. Still pending FAA approval, that spaceport sits on the site of the former Clinton-Sherman Airpark in Burns Flats and boasts one of the world's longest runways.

The Oklahoma Spaceport has passed all its requirements and is expected to win an FAA license over the next several weeks, said Bill Khourie, executive director of the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority.

Mission control is being upgraded and there are plans for VIP lounges and other amenities.

"We ultimately plan on building more sexy facilities," said Charles Lauer, vice president of business development at Rocketplane Kistler.

The FAA also is considering two proposed spaceports in Texas, including a private spaceport on 165,000 acres of desolate ranch land about 120 miles east of El Paso bought by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. Bezos had said his space tourism firm, Blue Origin, would first build basic structures, then begin flight tests in six to seven years.

To gain a spaceport license, a facility must pass an environmental review and prove that its location won't harm surrounding communities or the public, said Patricia Grace Smith, associate administrator of the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation. Spaceports and launch vehicles are licensed separately.

The 1990s saw a different spaceport race.

Back then, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas were among more than a dozen states that squandered thousands of dollars trying to woo a much-hyped experimental spacecraft program.

VentureStar, a wedge-shaped spaceship by NASA and Lockheed Martin, was supposed to replace the space shuttle. But the program was plagued by engineering problems and was scrubbed in 2001.

To avoid another bust, commercial space hubs must find creative ways to supplement tourists' weightless experience by adding attractions such as theme parks, hotels and restaurants, said Derek Webber, director of Spaceport Associates, a Maryland-based consulting firm.

"You've got to do your homework," he said, "because not all states will succeed."

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