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A Spaceport In Ohio?

Posted by kdawson on from the hello-columbus dept.

UglyTool writes to alert us to an initiative by the state of Ohio and the city of Columbus to lure Canadian rocketeers PlanetSpace to launch from an area airport (the former Lockbourne Air Force Base, now called Rickenbacker International Airport). A decision on the incentives could be made by January. From the article: "Such a package could include tax credits, financing programs and training grants amounting to millions of dollars... PlanetSpace's chairman, Indian-American entrepreneur Chirinjeev Kathuria, told MSNBC.com he expected the incentives to amount to 'somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 million.'" Five other states have spaceports approved or planned.

7 of 107 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Strange ship, and why in Ohio? by MichaelSmith · · Score: 4, Funny
    doesn't have that "Cool" factor for me.

    an ICBM with a stealth fighter attached isn't cool?

    --
    http://michaelsmith.id.au
  2. Ohio story by lawpoop · · Score: 4, Funny
    As an Ohioan, let me relay this narrative to you:
    • The Wright brothers, who developed and flew the first airplane, were from Ohio.
    • John Glenn, the first man in orbit, is an Ohioan.
    • Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, is an Ohioan.
    • Now, they are talking about building a spaceport in Ohio.
    It just shows what length men will go to to get the hell out of Ohio!
    --
    Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
    -- Pablo Picasso
    1. Re:Ohio story by stonedcat · · Score: 1, Funny

      I tried to leave ohio once... only made it to southern dayton before I ran out of gas and ended up on someone's couch for a year and a half.

      --
      You can't take the sky from me.
    2. Re:Ohio story by bmgoau · · Score: 4, Funny

      Your facts are inherintly flawed for one very basic reason. See Yuri Gagarin couldn't have orbited the earth because...

      In Soviet Russia Earth orbits you!

  3. Re:Never happen - you'll fly E over Washington, DC by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny
    The population density of the east coast will be very problematic for anyone trying to launch east that is not on the coast.
    Take I-70 east from Columbus sometime. The only thing dense you'll see for a long, long way is cow shit.
  4. Re:Landing in Ohio, launching from unknown locatio by Gothmolly · · Score: 1, Funny

    HAHA, you RTFA'd!

    -1, Nerd

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    I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
  5. Re:Saddle Up! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Yore a fucking idiot. Terraforming can easily be done in a few minutes. All you need is a molecular seed bomb to start a chain reaction in the atmosphere guided by pre-programmed nanosystems. Using calculations of the target planet's current atmospheric conditions (gas mix, climatology, etc...) vs. the desired results, you would program the molecular seeds to bring the gas mix into balance, rebuild the outer layers of the atmosphere to either let in or keep out the desired amount of UV and Infrared radiation in both directions, etc... The technology to do this has existed for at least the past 75 years in the U.S. If we wanted to, we could put an atmoshpere on the moon by the end of the week (a lot more work to do due to the lack of any atmosphere) and obviate the need for moonbases. The reason it's not being done is two fold. One, the initial financial risk is too great for the investors. Two, the long term return would eat away at potential profits to said investors. Would people who were made super wealthy by the companies that designed the best buggies in the pre-automobile world have ever invested in the automobile at the outset knowing that it would kill off the buggy industry? Unlikely.