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Commercial Use of Shuttle Landing Facilities Planned

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the open-for-business dept.

VeganBob writes "There may be future non-NASA uses of the Shuttle Landing Facilities. At 15,000 feet long and 300 feet wide, the landing strip is larger than those at most commercial airports. From the article: 'NASA today issued a formal request for expressions of interest by non-NASA organizations, including commercial space companies, for use of the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Fla. The announcement is the first step in considering how and when NASA can expand access to available capacity at the SLF by government, commercial, and academic organizations.' SPACE.com also covers this announcement."

6 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Forget space - by tomhudson · · Score: 3, Funny
    ... it'll make a really good drag-strip for rocket-propelled cars doing the 1/4-mile.

    Or regular races - sell lots of tickets - you could call it the NASACAR races.

    1. Re:Forget space - by TheClassic · · Score: 2, Funny

      An old Onion article about NASA and NASCAR merging. http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.autos.spor t.nascar/browse_frm/thread/d2802b1cc0bb31fe/

  2. This is great! by Krankheit · · Score: 2, Funny

    I need to get in on this so I can start my new business, named Doublelook, Inc. Companies like GEICO and Vonage will pay me to display thier banner ads on large 10-mile-wide orbiting displays. And everynight, an eclipse caused by a circular display. Maybe it could say "This eclipse brought to you by Coca-Cola?" I just need to work out my pricing model. Maybe a cost per impression, but how am I going to know when someone looks at the space banner?

    --
    Powered by caffeine and sugar; BSD
  3. the longest tarp ever would help... by zionwillnotfall · · Score: 3, Funny

    does anyone else see the world's first proffessional slip 'n slide tournament?

  4. Ahem, this article should read: by coofercat · · Score: 2, Funny
    VeganBob writes (VBW) "There may be (TMB) future non-NASA uses (NNU) of the Shuttle Landing Facilities (SLF). At 15,000 feet long (FFL) and 300 feet wide (TFW), the landing strip (TLS) is larger than those (LTT) at most commercial airports (MCA). From the article (FTA): 'NASA today issued (NTI) a formal request for expressions (FRE) of interest by non-NASA organizations (NNO), including commercial space companies (CSC), for use of (FUO) the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) at the Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Florida (FLA). The announcement is the first step (TFS) in considering how and when (HAW) NASA can expand access to (EAT) available capacity at the SLF by government, commercial, and academic (GCA) organizations.' SPACE.com also covers this announcement (CTA)."

    I thank you (ITY).

  5. Re:Commerical Spaceport! by __aaclcg7560 · · Score: 2, Funny

    But it's in the middle of nowhere! How can we attract weird, funky aliens if we don't have senior citizens, used car dealers and man-eating crocs to feed them with? The only thing that the Mojave spaceport can attract is a Star Trek convention. :P