Negotiations underway to shift 1st stage landings at Kennedy to new site
Capitalism in space: Negotiations between the Air Force, NASA, and Space Florida (which runs the spaceport) have begun to establish a new location at Kennedy for 1st stage rocket landings.
The goal would be to lessen the burden landings impose on the Cape’s nearby industrial area, which workers must evacuate for hours during some missions. “If we have to stop operations for a launch during the middle of day, it is severely impacting to other customers,” Brig Gen. Wayne Monteith, commander of the Air Force’s 45th Space Wing, said Tuesday during a transportation conference at Port Canaveral.
As outlined in KSC’s master plan, the new landing pad could be built near the northern end of the spaceport’s secure perimeter — north of pad 39B and south of State Road 402 leading to Canaveral National Seashore’s Playalinda Beach. “We have land further to the north that’s not populated like the industrial area of the Cape is, and that might make for a really good location for a new landing zone for an increased landing rate,” said Nancy Bray, KSC’s director of spaceport integration and services.
I expect that SpaceX, should it be forced to shift landings from its just built landing sites, will also need to be in these negotiations since it will likely want some reimbursement for that work.
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.
Capitalism in space: Negotiations between the Air Force, NASA, and Space Florida (which runs the spaceport) have begun to establish a new location at Kennedy for 1st stage rocket landings.
The goal would be to lessen the burden landings impose on the Cape’s nearby industrial area, which workers must evacuate for hours during some missions. “If we have to stop operations for a launch during the middle of day, it is severely impacting to other customers,” Brig Gen. Wayne Monteith, commander of the Air Force’s 45th Space Wing, said Tuesday during a transportation conference at Port Canaveral.
As outlined in KSC’s master plan, the new landing pad could be built near the northern end of the spaceport’s secure perimeter — north of pad 39B and south of State Road 402 leading to Canaveral National Seashore’s Playalinda Beach. “We have land further to the north that’s not populated like the industrial area of the Cape is, and that might make for a really good location for a new landing zone for an increased landing rate,” said Nancy Bray, KSC’s director of spaceport integration and services.
I expect that SpaceX, should it be forced to shift landings from its just built landing sites, will also need to be in these negotiations since it will likely want some reimbursement for that work.
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.
The day may come (and perhaps not too many years from now) when SpaceX may want their own island that is not an American territory. Finding a suitable place with an agreeable stable govt. would be the issue.
Imagine if they found a place nobody had ever claimed and just claimed it for themselves (is there such a place?)
ken–
tangential, but not entirely…
Offshore pirate radio in the UK
https://youtu.be/eXkYmohtsSg
5:04
Maybe SpaceX needs to take up Seasteading?