Free Republic

KINGSLAND, Ga. (AP) — A federal agency said Wednesday it's once again delaying a final decision on whether to permit construction of a launchpad for commercial rockets on the Georgia coast. The Federal Aviation Administration now plans to issue a decision on Spaceport Camden by Nov. 3 “due to ongoing consultation efforts,” agency spokesman Steve Kulm said in a statement. Previously, the FAA had said it intended to make a final determination on the project by the end of July, then shifted its target date to the end of September. Camden County in Georgia’s coastal, southeast corner has spent nine...

Economy Minister Peter Altmaier has signaled that the government will consider building a space launch center after German industries demanded more to investment in space research and development. “Space travel excites many people and creates thousands of jobs. We are leaders in satellite technology. Therefore, I will examine the suggestion of the Federation of German Industries (BDI) for a spaceport,” he told the mass-circulation Bild. German industry has called for the space innovation budget to more than double from €285 million ($318 million) to a level on par with France at more than €700 million. …

NM Spaceport Seeks Additional State Subsidies 9-26-18 Virgin Galactic is the lead tenant at the spaceport

Before you launch a rocket, you need to count the moose. Maritime Launch Services, the company that hopes to build a spaceport on a parcel of Nova Scotia land that juts into the ocean near Canso in Guysborough County, must first complete an environmental review — including counting seasonal numbers of local flora and fauna — before the province agrees to the project. “We’ve hired a contractor to help us do the study,” MLS president Steve Matier said Monday. “We could conceivably complete that effort at the end of this year.” “It’s part of the process, and it’s understood. We...

The UK government has issued a shortlist of aerodromes that could host a UK The UK government has issued a shortlist of aerodromes that could host a UK spaceport. The list reduces the number of runways first suggested as candidates when last year's consultation got under way. Still in are Campbeltown, Glasgow Prestwick, and Stornoway in Scotland; Newquay in England and Llanbedr in Wales. RAF Leuchars is confirmed as a potential temporary facility. Ministers are keen to see the spaceport established by 2018. . The list reduces the number of runways first suggested as candidates when last year's consultation got...

Iran’s Defense Minister says the country’s new space center will be operational by next spring, the latest development in a program signaling Tehran’s fast-developing ballistic missile capability. Ahmad Vahidi said after a cabinet meeting Wednesday that the facility, to be called the Imam Khomeini Spaceport, would be completed and running by the end of the Iranian year (March 20, 2013). Officials said earlier that the center – whose location has not been disclosed – will be used to launch satellites built in Iran and other Islamic countries. “The children of great Khomeini, the innovative and leading scientists and experts from...

Later this month, a U.S. company plans to make the first private spaceflight to the International Space Station. Much of the space community views the launch by SpaceX as a watershed moment—the opening of the heavens to private industry, and a glimpse of the public-private nature of future spaceflight. The launch also comes as Texas' future in space is increasingly tenuous, with Johnson Space Center's role unclear amid a NASA that won't have its own functional rocket for at least a decade. That's why some Texas space officials are enticed by SpaceX's consideration of building a spaceport in Texas. "The...

With his usual flare, British billionaire Richard Branson rappelled from a balcony, shook up a big bottle of champagne and took a swig while christening the world's first built-from-scratch commercial spaceport on Monday. Branson's Virgin Galactic will stage its commercial space tourism venture from Spaceport America in a remote patch of desert in southern New Mexico. Branson was joined by Gov. Susana Martinez, astronaut Buzz Aldrin and scores of would-be space travelers at the terminal-hangar for the dedication. It had been nearly a year since Branson was in New Mexico to celebrate the completion of the runway. "The building is...

Phase one of the world's first commercial spaceport, which will be the hub for Virgin's consumer spaceflights, is now 90 per cent complete. The 1,800-acre Spaceport America site, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, is the home base for Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's most ambitious business venture yet. It already boasts a runway stretching to nearly two miles long, a futuristic styled terminal hanger, and a dome-shaped Space Operations Centre. The work is now just months away from completion, according to a spaceport spokesman, and is set to be done by the end of the year, well in time for the...

Once aimed at completion last year, the $209 million taxpayer-financed project in the southern New Mexico high desert stands half-finished. In her first two weeks in office, a wary new governor sacked both the Spaceport Authority's board and its executive director. Records show the ambitious project launched under Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson has faced construction delays and a lack of planning. Competition from other states interested in commercial space flights continues to loom. There's also the prospect that the state may need to spend an additional $10 million to $20 million to build a second runway to deal with the...

SANTA FE, New Mexico (Reuters) – The New Mexico Spaceport Authority, which plans to start launching citizen astronauts on suborbital flights within 18 months, has begun soliciting contract bids from local businesses for day-to-day operations of the facility. Construction of the world's first commercial passenger space terminal, dubbed Spaceport America, is slated to be finished next year near the town of Truth or Consequences in southern New Mexico. The 2-mile-long main runway was completed in October. Two other major structures nearing completion at the nearly $200 million facility are the air-fire rescue facility and a 110,000-square-foot hangar, authority spokesman David...

Mexico City - Mexico plans to begin construction this year on a space port to send satellites aloft, an official said Monday. The facility will be located in the southern state of Quintana Roo on the border with Belize, said state planning minister Jose Alberto Alonso Ovando. The location was chosen after extensive studies in part because of its proximity to the Equator, he said in an interview. Late last year, the Mexican National Congress approved the founding of a national space agency, Aexa. The agency's headquarters will be located in the state of Hidalgo from where it will oversee...

Associated Press LAS CRUCES — The New Mexico Spaceport Authority today unveiled the design of Spaceport America, the state's commercial spaceport venture north of Las Cruces. Spaceport officials say the low-lying 100,000-square-foot hangar and terminal facility will have a minimal impact on the environment, resembling a rise in the landscape. Construction is to begin next year and is expected to be finished in late 2009 or early 2010 The cost of the entire spaceport project is estimated at $198 million.

MOJAVE, Calif. — Two people were killed and four others injured Thursday by an explosion at a Mojave Desert airport that is home to pioneering civilian rocket programs, authorities said. Wreckage of equipment and vehicles could be seen in an overhead view of the site broadcast by a KCAL-TV news helicopter. A sign on a truck behind a bunker had the name Scaled. Scaled Composites is the Mojave-based builder of SpaceShipOne, the first private manned rocket to reach space. "Reports are two fatalities and at least four critical injuries," said Kern County fire Capt. Doug Johnston, who was not at...

Rutan OK. See link for other details.

LAS CRUCES, N.M. -- Come April 3, the voters of this sun-baked area near the Mexican border will have an unusual question to answer: Are they happy enough as home to some hardy cotton and chile farmers, a branch of the state university and a growing population of retirees from up north? Or do they want quite literally to blast into a very different future? In a referendum, the people of Las Cruces and surrounding Do?a Ana County will be voting on a proposal to slightly raise their county sales tax, a highly unpopular idea these days. But in return,...

As Mojave Airport moves into the future as the nation's first inland space port, the facility needs to create a brand that will make it readily identifiable and distinct from others that may follow. With that goal in mind, directors of the East Kern Airport District - which governs the air and space port - narrowly approved a concept for the logo design that is intended to convey the purpose of the facility. Using such signature brand symbols as the Swiss Army cross and Nike "swoosh" as examples, Witt told directors the air and space port needs a logo that...

UPHAM — An unmanned rocket that took off in the inaugural launch from New Mexico's spaceport crashed in the desert Monday, failing in its mission to reach sub-orbital space. The 20-foot SpaceLoft XL rocket, among the first to be launched from a commercial U.S. spaceport, was carrying various experiments and other payloads for its planned journey 70 miles above Earth. The rocket took of at 2:14 p.m. and was due back about 13 minutes later at White Sands Missile Range, just north of the launch site. Something went wrong shortly after takeoff, sending the rocket prematurely to the ground. Officials...

NEW YORK - Beam me up, indeed! James Doohan, who played chief engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott in the original “Star Trek” TV series and several movies, will have a few grams of his ashes blasted 70 miles into space this fall from southern New Mexico. Houston-based Space Services Inc. plans to have the ashes of 100 others aboard the Oct. 21 “memorial spaceflight” — among them, Gordon Cooper, one of the original seven Mercury astronauts.

An environmental study facing scrutiny this week offers a tantalizing glimpse into the secretive West Texas private spaceport project being bankrolled and developed by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos. Under the banner of a Seattle-area company called Blue Origin, a spacecraft dubbed the New Shepard Reusable Launch Vehicle would take off vertically, like NASA's space shuttle. But unlike the shuttle, which glides to earth and lands like an airplane, the spaceship would land vertically. The craft would hit an altitude of about 325,000 feet before descending and restarting its engine for a "precision vertical powered landing on the landing pad" located...