USA TODAY International Edition
SMALL ROCKETS, BIG DREAMS
Spaceports setting up shop across the USA
WATKINS, Colo. – A ribbon of concrete runway on Colorado’s eastern plains is poised to become the cutting edge of civilian spaceflight if local boosters realize their long-held dreams to travel anywhere in the world in just minutes. Known as Spaceport Colorado, the nascent launch complex about 30 miles east of Denver awaits final federal approval to join nearly a dozen sites around the country hoping to cash in on the commercialization of space travel and inexpensive satellite launches.
Because most of the sites are in outof-the-way places, such as Kodiak Island, Alaska, or Truth or Consequences, N.M., they’ve largely remained under the radar and out of the public eye. Instead, high-profile sites such as California’s Vandenberg Air Force Base — which launched a Mars probe Saturday — grab the spotlight.
That could be changing with a move toward cheaper and smaller rockets.
A more sophisticated complex in New Mexico already has seen multiple private rocket launches as companies such as Virgin Galactic and SpaceX race toward providing inexpensive space travel. And backers are promoting spaceports from Alaska to Hawaii and Virginia to Alabama as they jockey for a slice of a potentially trillion-dollar industry.
“The space industry is entering an exciting time. All the stars are aligning.”
Daniel Hicks Spaceport America’s CEO
“We’ve gotten all the hard stuff figured out — now it’s just a matter of money and getting things built. This is real and it is happening,” said David Ruppel, director of Colorado’s Front Range Airport, which he hopes to transform into Spaceport Colorado.
Congress created the commercial space launch sector in 1984, and since then most of the launches have been of large rockets thundering off the pads at Cape Canaveral and Vandenberg.
But experts say the launch future lies with tiny satellites. Along with those rockets comes the technology to fly rocket-powered airplanes through the upper atmosphere, potentially cutting travel time to 90 minutes from any two points around the globe.
Scientists are perfecting two kinds of launches: the vertical kind we usually associate with rockets and horizontal launches and landings similar to an airplane’s.
The future is small
One of the busiest civilian spaceports is Spaceport America in southern New Mexico. Boasting tenants that include Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the world’s only purpose-built commercial spaceport sprawls over nearly 30 square miles and already has seen more than 100 vertical rocket launches.
Funded initially by state taxpayers, the spaceport has a concrete runway more than 2 miles long and multiple pads for vertical launches. The facility offers tours for visitors starting at $50.
In addition to the vertical launches, Spaceport America has seen multiple Virgin Galactic test flights of its combined aircraft-rocket system, which uses a special airplane to carry aloft a rocket that will take people into space.
“We will look back at this phase and realize we were rewriting history,” said Daniel Hicks, Spaceport America’s CEO.
For decades, space launch sites have been selected because they’re close to oceans. But technology is changing things. Smaller satellites ride aloft on rockets that don’t need external boosters or tanks like the space shuttle, can easily be shipped by airplane or barge, and can be assembled anywhere.
A launch every two weeks
That’s what Craig Campbell, president and CEO of Alaska Aerospace, is counting on. Alaska Aerospace runs a vertical-only launch site on Kodiak Island and hopes to ramp up to a rocket launch every two weeks, specializing in satellites about the size of shoeboxes.
“I’m trying to capture that emerging market in small satellite vertical launches because that’s where the revenue is. It’s happening,” Campbell said. That represents a shift for Alaska Aerospace’s Pacific Spaceport Complex-Alaska, which through 2014 had launched nearly 20 government rockets before a portion of the facility was destroyed when a military launch went awry. After rebuilding, the company decided to diversify into commercial launches and create a cadre of civilian technicians.
Vision in the making
Today, Spaceport Colorado is not much more than a dream and some paperwork. Ruppel said he envisions Spaceport Colorado as part of a network of sites around the world.
Back in New Mexico, Hicks and Spaceport America expect to serve both kinds of launches for decades as an economic development engine evolves to surround the complex.
“The space industry is entering an exciting time,” Hicks said. “All the stars are aligning.”