Spaceport race is going global

By Leonard David

Senior space writer

updated 12:30 p.m. ET May 17, 2006

There’s a global groundswell of support to build spaceports.

In the United States alone, political and financial muscle is at work to install spaceports in a number of states, be it in New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas … as well as Wisconsin. Other states, especially Florida, are busy trying not to be left behind in the spaceport sweepstakes by pushing for new space-industry legislation.

On the world scene, a Scotland spaceport has been touted. So too is building a spaceport in the United Arab Emirates. Also being advanced is Spaceport Singapore.

Still, with all this hustle and bustle, key questions remain: What is a spaceport anyhow? Moreover, can they be designed to accommodate the projected hunger for public space travel?

In the past, numbers of spaceports have been advocated — but faltered for various reasons.

The bottom line for a spaceport: It’s a lot more than plopping down a launch pad.

Full-service transportation
Since 1996, the Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of the Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation has licensed five spaceports in the United States: California Spaceport at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Spaceport Florida at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, the Virginia Space Flight Center at Wallops Island, Kodiak Launch Complex on Alaska's Kodiak Island, and the latest site to be sanctioned — the inland Mojave Spaceport in California.

Overall, some three dozen operational spaceports are spread out around the planet — most of them government-owned and -operated. But the promise of scheduled spaceliners blasting off with ticketed passengers onboard is changing the spaceport scene.

MSNBC.com In addition to the current or planned spaceports listed here, sites are also under consideration in Texas and Wisconsin.

"One might look at a spaceport as an innovative, new-century version of what you remember airports first looked like," observed Patricia Grace Smith, the head of the FAA’s commercial space transportation office. "They will be a gathering place for people to learn and witness, for the first time, the capabilities and benefits of space," she told Space.com.

Smith pointed to New Mexico’s spaceport intentions, the building of a "full-service" transportation entity for space. "So you’ll be able to go and take suborbital rides and experience zero-gravity, but also become educated and aware of all the various aspects of space."

Flight line of business
Eric Anderson, president of Space Adventures, a leading space experiences firm headquartered in Vienna, Va., has remarked that "countries around the world are only just realizing the enormous commercial possibilities of space tourism."

The market potential for suborbital spaceflights alone, Anderson suggested, is estimated at $1 billion annually. Suborbital flights will offer millions of people the opportunity to experience space travel, he said.

By the end of the decade, in addition to the continued launch of spaceflight participants to the international space station — one flight line of business for Space Adventures — "we envision operational suborbital spaceflights and the launch of the first commercial circumlunar spaceflight," Anderson said.

Space Adventures recently announced a contract with Prodea, a private investment firm, to develop a fleet of suborbital spaceflight vehicles for commercial use globally. "This joint venture, in addition to the development of spaceport locations around the globe, is a part of Space Adventures’ effort to offer millions of people the opportunity to travel to space," said Space Adventures’ vice president for orbital spaceflight, Chris Faranetta.

Joint venture
Clearly stirring the space travel and spaceport pot is the talent whirlpool of British billionaire Richard Branson, along with aerospace imagineer and builder Burt Rutan of Scaled Composites in Mojave.

In July of last year, the twosome formed The Spaceship Company. That joint venture is focused on manufacturing and marketing spaceships for the suborbital personal spaceflight industry.

The launch customer for the undertaking between Virgin Group and Scaled Composites is Virgin Galactic, Branson’s commercial space tourism endeavor. Virgin Galactic has placed an order for five SpaceShipTwo vehicles and twin White Knight Two motherships, with options on further systems, thus securing the exclusive use of the systems for the initial 18 months of commercial passenger operations.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson announced late last year a partnership with Branson to put in place a spaceport in the state. Branson’s Virgin Galactic will locate its world headquarters and mission control for its personal spaceflight business at the New Mexico spaceport, with start of operations projected for 2009 or 2010.

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