Florida approves expansion of spaceport territories
The Florida legislature has now approved two new locations in Florida where rocket launches can take place.
Governor Ron DeSantis signed off on a bill that, as of Monday, will add South Florida’s Homestead Air Reserve Base and the panhandle’s Tyndall Air Force Base to Florida’s growing spaceport territories.
The map to the right shows the spaceport locations within Florida. While the state government might now allow launches from these locations, it is unclear if either military facility is entertaining the idea.
Regardless, the Florida government is clearly intent on encouraging and attracting this new industry to its state.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The Florida legislature has now approved two new locations in Florida where rocket launches can take place.
Governor Ron DeSantis signed off on a bill that, as of Monday, will add South Florida’s Homestead Air Reserve Base and the panhandle’s Tyndall Air Force Base to Florida’s growing spaceport territories.
The map to the right shows the spaceport locations within Florida. While the state government might now allow launches from these locations, it is unclear if either military facility is entertaining the idea.
Regardless, the Florida government is clearly intent on encouraging and attracting this new industry to its state.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
By letting rocket launches from those two bases it gives the federal government another reason to keep them open, just in case they were on a future list of bases to close.
I was stationed at Tyndall. I can’t imagine where they’d put the launch pads. The base is somewhat rectangular, split in half the long way by a highway. The beach side is housing. The land side is the airplane stuff (runways, hangers, etc…).
Wildly unrelated: I asked to be assigned to Japan or Germany. Apparently, they split the difference. I loved the beach there. It was a great place to be stationed.
It would seem Tyndall could only host higher inclination launches, at least in the near term.
Maybe after Starship/Super Heavy gets reliable enough, they can entertain the idea of overflying land. I guess if giant jetliners filled with hundreds of tons of fuel regularly fly over densely populated cities, eventually SS can eventually do it also.