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Commercial Spaceport In Texas

Posted by timothy on from the a-big-damn-big-super-big-big-big-place dept.

Scothoser writes "CNN has this article on a rocket that was launched on a ranch site near Stockton, Texas. Their hope is that it will become a commercial launch site for anything, as long as it is legal. The major reason for this move is that using NASA launch sites are prohibitively expensive. This way someone can launch their home-made satellites for much less than approaching NASA. Now I am just waiting for the HOW-TO on a Linux-run micro-satellite!"

4 of 194 comments (clear)

  1. Liability issues could be enormous by Ryu2 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What if your private rocket has a malfunction and goes slamming into a major city, killing thousands? With space technology so new compared to all other forms of transportation, I'm guessing that it would be an insurance nightmare, I think, for any private individual or even single company to afford.

    --
    There's 10 types of people in this world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
  2. This isn't new by wyopittsa · · Score: 5, Interesting

    According to this article there is a spaceport in California that has been launching since the year 2000. Does anyone know anymore about it?

  3. Re:Legal? by Meridun · · Score: 4, Interesting
    As funny as it is, this is actually pretty much the heart of why it costs so much to launch satellites: any rocket capable of putting something into orbit is realistically an ICBM.

    Near the anniversary of Sputnik (which I think was last week), I'd remind everyone that it was this fact that was why Sputnik was so frightening to Americans; if the Soviets could put a beeping piece of metal into orbit, they could just as easily have made it come down near us instead.

    Therefore, any company that is capable of putting cargo into space is very likely to find itself under strict regulation, due to the potential for that cargo to be miss orbit either accidentally or purposely.

  4. John Powell is a great guy by PhantomHarlock · · Score: 5, Interesting
    JP Aerospace is a great little company, partially run by volunteers. Their main specialty is extremely high altitude balloon platforms (edge of space) from which they can conduct experiments and launch rockets. John does a lot of work with kids and education, including taking up "Pong-Sats", which are ping pong balls cut open and stuffed with what ever the kids want to put in them, sans live animals. One person put some digital camera memory in it with all the bits set to zero, and then when it came back got a very accurate radiation measurement by counting all the bits that had flipped.

    I had the pleasure of meeting John at the last Space Access Society meeting in Arizona and talking to him for several hours about high altitude photography from balloon and kite platforms.

    ---Mike