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First-Ever Private Spaceport Nears Final Approval
bobhagopian writes "According to the article on Space.com, the Federal Aviation Administration is nearing the final stages of certifying the Mojave Airport as the first-ever private spaceport. Both Scaled Composites and XCOR Aerospace (the two leading competitors in the X-Prize competition) currently fly out of Mojave Airport. The approval of a commercial spaceport will certainly facilitate the creation of even more private-sector space technologies."
Usually you're talking only a few miles off shore. That way, the rocket can launch toward the rest of the ocean (making for plentiful abort options) and any rockets that are destroyed don't land on people's heads. That's pretty much the same reason why NASA launches from Florida. Although I've never quite understood why they don't manufacture fuel on site. Probably has something to do with special additives and/or purity levels that improve the fuel combustion. A private venture might be slightly less concerned with the same levels of fuel efficiency.
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Oh, come on! You believe the myths that say public (read: government) ventures are more efficient or work better than private? A private venture with limited funding absolutely must get the most efficient use of resources or they are toast -- unless they have very deep pockets and are willing to squander. Which pretty much describes government projects. If you want bloat, look at NASA. If you want efficiency, look at smaller private operations like Scaled Composites.
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I think we can all agree that privatization is key for /affordable/ civilian spaceflight. However, I sincerely hope that those pursuing privately pursuing spaceflight settle for heavily regulated and subsidized government regulation (control) of "private spaceflight". /We/ will never reach maturity in spaceflight as long as government is involved. Government just waists too much money and is too sluggish and inefficient. Any sort of [government] planning of capital and resources going into private/civilian spaceflight will have a negative effect.
If government and NASA would stop with the Mars nonsense and the Impending Asteroid Impact bullcrap and completely privatize space, we'd be much further along --- technologically and financially.
Speckpot?
There *isn't* a Starbucks near the Mojave Airport. At least there wasn't last time I was there. I think I will go open franchise now while land values are cheap!
Seriously though: Mojave and California City have some of the cheapest raw land per acre in SoCal. I wonder if this would create a land boom there long term. Or if, when it became a more mature industry, would spaceports move to the traditional (at least in SF) equatorial areas.
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I don't consider duplicating something NASA achieved decades ago to be space exploration. I'm sure there is quite a market for launching Earth satellites and possibly space tourism, but as far as traveling to different planets and actually exploring space -- that's a money pit, and no commercial company likes to get into money pits.