Georgia voters kill Camden spaceport project
The residents of Camden County in Georgia yesterday voted by a margin of 72% to 28% to end the county’s project to build a project there.
There are hints that county officials might still try to proceed, having already spent more than $10 million on the project. There are also strong indications that if they do, they will be blocked legally on many fronts.
What this vote suggests is that Americans continue to be uninterested in more commerce, and are easily convinced to put environmental claims first in any political battle. The opponents of the spaceport had said that the spaceport threatened local wildlife — something that clearly doesn’t happen based on more than a half century of data at Cape Canaveral — and the voters in Camden were quick to agree. The voters also probably had a bit of not-in-my-backyard behind their vote as well.
Whether Camden would have succeeded as a spaceport of course is unknown. There are a lot of such facilities being proposed and built, and it is unclear if their number fits the actual launch demand.
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The residents of Camden County in Georgia yesterday voted by a margin of 72% to 28% to end the county’s project to build a project there.
There are hints that county officials might still try to proceed, having already spent more than $10 million on the project. There are also strong indications that if they do, they will be blocked legally on many fronts.
What this vote suggests is that Americans continue to be uninterested in more commerce, and are easily convinced to put environmental claims first in any political battle. The opponents of the spaceport had said that the spaceport threatened local wildlife — something that clearly doesn’t happen based on more than a half century of data at Cape Canaveral — and the voters in Camden were quick to agree. The voters also probably had a bit of not-in-my-backyard behind their vote as well.
Whether Camden would have succeeded as a spaceport of course is unknown. There are a lot of such facilities being proposed and built, and it is unclear if their number fits the actual launch demand.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Who wouldn’t want to be able to take a short drive to watch the occasional rocket launch into space from their own community!? What kind of boring buzzkills live in Camden?
Bored housewives afraid a few rumbles will ruin their spring-taculars where they can swap lawn-boys along with their mint julips.
Little better than NASCAR fans-you know…evil smelling…beer swilling, foul-mouthed shirtless drunks….and their husbands.
Jeff
We welcome them all to celebrate ? in Virginia to watch Rockets Fly ?
And stop for the annual Assateague Island pony ? swim, all near Wallops Island Launch Complex. Some say the ponys have been around here since the Spanish lost them in the 1500s.
Great Nature Areas both under USG and Commonwealth protection.
Whose Environmental record meets that of the Cape Complex in Florida.
Wallops first use July 4, 1945 for an American built & designed ? rocket
Our Great Eastern Shore Awaits !!!
https://www.nps.gov/asis/index.htm
Very strange. A spaceport would clearly benefit the area economically. Would raise the value of every homeowners property.
But you forget these homeowner associations get bent out of shape if your mailbox is too big-let alone fly a rocket. Hillbilly Hamptons.
As a lifelong Georgian and a resident of a semi-rural county, let me say that the objections to the spaceport are most likely not about the environment. Probably, the objections are more about the disruption of their lives. There’s a similar resistance to a huge electric vehicle factory in Morgan and Walton counties. Sometime, read about what happened in Seattle when Apple landed there. The entertainment value of a spaceport doesn’t compensate for the daily impact on their lives.
Henry Lee, do you mean Microsoft rather than Apple?
Or maybe they looked at the boondoggle faux “space port” built in New Mexico and asked themselves why taxpayers should be paying for such a thing.
This wasn’t about a private company wanting to build a spaceport at their own expense, it was about the county paying for it and hoping that customers would show up. I believe it would have been oriented toward small, expendable small-sat launchers (at least to start with), which is a dubious market niche likely to be completely destroyed by Starship, Neutron, and/or others.
Jeff Wright,
What is the matter?
You do not like when the unwashed masses do not accept what their governing betters decide for them?
Local rejected it because it was their tax dollars being invested, for a site that could, just could, see 12 launches a year. That’s not much. Hard to see the ROI in a,reasonable time. I doubt noise was a an issue, as they used to do engine testing there. Beside noise, there are a few houses down range. While Boca Chica residents tolerate occasion evacuations, it seems these residents do not care for it. It is their house. Their choice.
It also tends to royally annoy voters when efforts are made to circumvent their rights to decide things. Major efforts were made to block the vote from happening. In the end that cost them. They went about it the wrong way.
But you stick with you’d ad hominems. I am sure your right…
What’s wrong with swilling beer? As a fraternity brother, I take exception. Or racing cars? (I still hold a SCCA competition license – yes, I’m a qualified race car driver. Raced Triumphs and Mustangs). Your post shows you to be ignorant and bigoted. Why not just call them Deplorables and be done with it?