Spaceports

Spaceports are popping up all over the world. Most of us know about government launch sites such as Cape Canaveral, but few people are aware that commercial spaceports are quickly being constructed for the private space travel industry.

Paper by Michael C. Mineiro, Esq., McGill Institute of Air and Space Law

http://www.mcgill.ca/files/iasl/Session_9_Mineiro.pdf

Spaceport America

For a discussion of global spaceport industry go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceport. A list of global spaceports appears at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spaceports.

Virgin Spaceport

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=search_playlists&search_query=virgin+spaceport&uni=1

Spaceport Sweden

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2LyQICDyCk

European Spaceport

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5931O3gzIw

Exciting new spaceports are in the process of being proposed and/or constructed, for example like this one in Singapore.

To see a picture of the newly proposed Spaceport Singapore, go to the following website: http://www.spaceportsingapore.com/. This site also provides information regarding investor relations, space vehicles, press releases, media inquires and global space travel industry information please refer to the above website.

Another example of a newly proposed spaceport in the United Arab Emirates go to: http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/060222_techwed_spaceadventures.html.

This trend started in 1996 when the first license was issued by the FAA for the operation of a non-Federal spaceport - California Spaceport. Within a short time thereafter others followed including: Spaceport Florida, the Virginia Space Flight Center and the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska. Many states are becoming gateposts to space. Within the U.S., these states include: Alabama, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

The Internet is an easy way to learn more about the development of spaceports. For example, the website of the University and Community College System of Nevada NASA Space Grant/EPSCoR program www.nevada.edu/epscor/SpacePlan.html indicates that the aerospace vision for the State of Nevada is as follows:

In 2025 Nevada will have established itself as the Nation’s Western Gateway to Space through the development of one of 5 new national spaceports serving the needs of the international aerospace community. The Nevada spaceport will be the gateway for aerospace customers in the Great Basin including, including Oregon, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, and will also provide a high-altitude launch site for California. The Nevada spaceport will provide service facilities for both sub-orbital aerospace planes and re-useable launch vehicles. It will provide cargo, test and integration facilities for payloads for commercial, scientific and national defense missions as well as re-supply missions to the international space station, to lunar bases, and to Mars.

Further examples of spaceports as known as launch sites include: the Churchill Research Range in Manitoba, the Kourou Space Center in French Guiana, the Alcantara launch site in Brazil, the Baikonur in Kazakstan (neighboring nation to Russia), the Plesetsk, Kapustin Yar and Svobodny cosmodromes in Russia, the Palmachim Launch Center in Israel, the Jiuquan, Taiyuan and Xichange Satellite Launch Centers in China, the Tanegashima Space Center on Tanegashima Island and Kagoshima Space Center on Kyusha Island in Japan; the Sriharikota Island in India; the international waters off Christmas Island at Indonesia; and the Woomera Rocket Range in Australia. Although these spaceports are to be conservatively thought of as being for established international space businesses such as satellites for television, telecommunications, navigation, weather forecasting and the rockets to launch them, many of these sites will probably bid for the jobs of the various space tourism companies. In addition, Spaceport Tonga, is in process. It will be located in the Kingdom of Tonga, a small island state in the South Pacific.

The space tourism industry is connected to the burgeoning commercial spaceport business. These are two industries that only an elite few know about.

____________________

Dr. Edythe E. Weeks, Esq.

Independent Scholar and Researcher

Adjunct Faculty and Coordinator of International Relations Online Program

International Politics, Space Law Politics and Race/Ethnic Relations

Department of History, Politics and International Relations

Webster University Worldwide

H. Samuel Priest Center for International Studies

Webster Groves, MO 63119

United States of America

email: EdytheWeeks59@webster.edu

phone: US + 314.968.3982

website: http://sites.google.com/site/outerspacedevelopment/

Spaceports

© 2011 Edythe Weeks