Florida legislature considering bills to expand territory of its commerical Florida spaceport
Four bills under consideration in Florida’s legislature are proposing to expand the territory controlled by Space Florida, the state agency that runs the state’s commerical spaceport.
HB 577 and SB 968 seek to expand Florida’s spaceport system territory to include Tyndall Air Force Base and Homestead Air Reserve Base. Space Florida says the land owners still have authority over what projects or improvements can be made.
CS/HM 143 and SB 370 seeks to add seaports as a qualified tax-exempt category of private activity bonds. Space Florida is urging Congress to take action, as receiving the tax exemption is not something the state alone can change.
The bills specifically refer to property that the state owns within these federal bases or recently given back to the state. Overall however these bases remain federal facilities. It thus appears the bills are mostly designed to pressure Congress to act to give Space Florida more control.
The supporters of the bills cite the need for this expansion due to the spectacular increase in commercial launches in Florida, which set a record last year and is expected to do the same each year for the foreseeable future. The irony is that when the space shuttle’s retirement was announced in 2004, Florida officials thought this would be an end to the state’s space operations. Instead, private enterprise since then has resulted in a growth far greater than anything NASA ever provided.
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
Four bills under consideration in Florida’s legislature are proposing to expand the territory controlled by Space Florida, the state agency that runs the state’s commerical spaceport.
HB 577 and SB 968 seek to expand Florida’s spaceport system territory to include Tyndall Air Force Base and Homestead Air Reserve Base. Space Florida says the land owners still have authority over what projects or improvements can be made.
CS/HM 143 and SB 370 seeks to add seaports as a qualified tax-exempt category of private activity bonds. Space Florida is urging Congress to take action, as receiving the tax exemption is not something the state alone can change.
The bills specifically refer to property that the state owns within these federal bases or recently given back to the state. Overall however these bases remain federal facilities. It thus appears the bills are mostly designed to pressure Congress to act to give Space Florida more control.
The supporters of the bills cite the need for this expansion due to the spectacular increase in commercial launches in Florida, which set a record last year and is expected to do the same each year for the foreseeable future. The irony is that when the space shuttle’s retirement was announced in 2004, Florida officials thought this would be an end to the state’s space operations. Instead, private enterprise since then has resulted in a growth far greater than anything NASA ever provided.
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
Homestead would be more desirable due to its unimpeded flight path east over the Atlantic. Tyndall, not so much. It’s really only good for polar orbits which duplicates what Vandenberg already provides with its existing infrastructure. Aiming for geosynchronous orbits and suborbits in-between is where the real money is.
Andrew cleared a path through Homestead..
Robert wrote: “The irony is that when the space shuttle’s retirement was announced in 2004, Florida officials thought this would be an end to the state’s space operations. Instead, private enterprise since then has resulted in a growth far greater than anything NASA ever provided.”
Irony for the state officials, but there have been free market launch advocates since late 1970s or early 1980s, at the latest.
When I was young, Robert Truax wanted to start a commercial launch company, but funding was hard to come by, not only because of competition with the Space Shuttle but because Congress decreed that all American launches would be on the Space Shuttle, launch-blocking American commercial space. That fiasco was the reason Arianespace was such a success; they got almost all of America’s communication satellite launches, until Iridium and Globalstar.
In the late 1980s, Orbital Sciences started taking smallsats to orbit, because it was thought that market was about to blossom. It was still too early.
In the 1990s, several other companies tried to get into the launch business, but none succeeded. Not only was the smallsats market not yet there, but investors were still skeptical that new American companies could compete with existing Arianespace, American, and Russian launchers.
In the 2000s, NASA finally suggested that it would be using private U.S. commercial launch services, but Kistler still found it difficult to find outside investors. SpaceX convinced just enough investors to make NASA’s first milestone, then Orbital Sciences did, too. In addition, the cubesat concept began to make smallsats in standard sizes that were much easier to find ride-shares. With cubesats doing so well, more companies started supplying miniature hardware for them, and the smallsat industry really took off, so much that the small launch market has yet to catch up.
The 2010s saw the proving of the reusable rocket as economical, a failure for NASA’s Space Shuttle. The cost of launch for SpaceX kept dropping and the availability of booster rockets put pressure on the capabilities of the rest of the launch infrastructure.
Now in the 2020s, we should see commercial space stations, requiring even more commercial manned launches, so Starliner may be coming online just in time, and Sierra Space’s manned Dream Chaser may also come online in a timely manner.
So, yeah. Irony for the state government, but not for space enthusiasts who had expected this kind of space activity back when we were kids. It’s about time!