Commercial Spaceport for Colorado?
It’s apparently on the mind of the Governor and some legislators here in Colorado:
When I first heard mention of this last week, I scoffed because it struck me as just another bandwagon-jumping scheme akin to “green energy”. But as the video points out, there are good reasons to consider a spaceport in Colorado beyond the “us too” factor. The most important being the fact that there are a lot of commercial aerospace companies in Colorado, including Dreamchaser-builder Sierra Nevada, who might profit from providing and/or using services at the spaceport, and the airport’s proximity to a major hub airport, which can feed passengers and high-value cargo into potential future point-to-point suborbital transportation services.
I’m against “public-private partnerships” and subsidies and the like on principle, but it’s an idea worth looking into – perhaps there is a way that a spaceport could be created at Front Range without requiring such things. Unfortunately, I doubt our current legislature will do it, and if they do, I fear the bloated, corrupt, ineffectual result that would come of any such effort.
[video h/t Clark Lindsey]
March 4th, 2012 at 11:46 pm
Robert Heinlein foretold of Colorado spaceport in the 60′s. It’s about time these hillbillys get with the program. The biggest reason is the difference in the cost of boost between sea level and higher elevations. South Park(9000+’) would be better than anywhere on the front range(5-6000′).