Houston yesterday signed a letter of intent with Sierra Nevada to provide the company a home at that city’s proposed spaceport.
The competition heats up: Houston yesterday signed a letter of intent with Sierra Nevada to provide the company a home at that city’s proposed spaceport.
The competition here is not from the spaceship company but from the spaceport. Houston is in a race with Colorado and Florida for the launch business. In fact, it appears that a lot of American cities are scrambling to attract the new aerospace launch companies, suggesting that they all see a new industry aborning and want their share.
Another example: The California legislature has passed a ten year tax exemption for spaceflight companies.
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The competition heats up: Houston yesterday signed a letter of intent with Sierra Nevada to provide the company a home at that city’s proposed spaceport.
The competition here is not from the spaceship company but from the spaceport. Houston is in a race with Colorado and Florida for the launch business. In fact, it appears that a lot of American cities are scrambling to attract the new aerospace launch companies, suggesting that they all see a new industry aborning and want their share.
Another example: The California legislature has passed a ten year tax exemption for spaceflight companies.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID 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. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
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.
Colorado? So its OK to dump the flubs, stages and other trash on flyover country?. Hey, its just a bunch of Red Staters but they may drop a rocket on a wind farm.
On LinkedIn’s space groups we have someone called Thomas Stagliano, who keeps saying that winged spaceships cannot fly the last bit of their return over populated areas, because they are not and cannot be type certificated, so that places like Kennedy Space Center and the Houston site cannot be used by DreamChaser. He also says he thinks that Dragon Rider cannot land on its rockets on land, for the same reason, anywhere East of the Westcoast. He does note that NASA had their own government agency waiver for this with the Shuttle.
Anybody have an idea whether this is smoke or fire?
What exactly is Dream Chaser going to do in Houston? It can’t launch from there, and theres no particular reason to land it there and then fly it to KSC or wherever else the Atlas-V launches from?
Smoke. Gliders, and any type of experimental aircraft, have been certified…though given these ships aren’t going to be well tested, flying them over the burbs would be politically very iffy.