Proposed Las Vegas spaceport signs deal with launch startup
A private spaceport proposed for the desert west of Las Vegas has signed a deal with launch startup company to wants to use a 747 to launch reusable rockets.
Robert Lauer, director of Las Vegas Spaceport, announced a partnership with O-G Launch, a company headed by Robert Feierbach. Feierbach’s company aims to be a part of the commercial space industry by launching satellites from recyclable rockets deployed from large jets.
Terms of the partnership were not disclosed, but it is expected that companies seeking to deploy satellites would use O-G Launch aircraft starting from the Las Vegas Spaceport to launch a satellite-bearing rocket from 40,000 feet.
To put it mildly, this project is hardly a spaceport. It is planned as a casino, a resort, and a flight school with a runway. O-G helps give it the appearance of a spaceport by allowing it to claim orbital launches will take place there. Whether O-G ever takes off is another thing entirely. Its presence as part of the project, however, provides great PR for attracting customers to the proposed resort/casino.
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A private spaceport proposed for the desert west of Las Vegas has signed a deal with launch startup company to wants to use a 747 to launch reusable rockets.
Robert Lauer, director of Las Vegas Spaceport, announced a partnership with O-G Launch, a company headed by Robert Feierbach. Feierbach’s company aims to be a part of the commercial space industry by launching satellites from recyclable rockets deployed from large jets.
Terms of the partnership were not disclosed, but it is expected that companies seeking to deploy satellites would use O-G Launch aircraft starting from the Las Vegas Spaceport to launch a satellite-bearing rocket from 40,000 feet.
To put it mildly, this project is hardly a spaceport. It is planned as a casino, a resort, and a flight school with a runway. O-G helps give it the appearance of a spaceport by allowing it to claim orbital launches will take place there. Whether O-G ever takes off is another thing entirely. Its presence as part of the project, however, provides great PR for attracting customers to the proposed resort/casino.
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.
During WW2, the US built tons of airbases across the Mid and Southwest. Postwar, almost all were sold to the local county or city for a dollar each. You can tell them easily, the three runways laid out in an A pattern with street names like A Drive, 3rd Street, etc on the grounds. At least in the Eighties, many still had their WW2 era buildings, some converted, but most boarded up with “Industrial Site Available” signs out front. I can remember flying into one in Idaho when I had a private license that proudly proclaimed itself as being “XYZ International Airport”. I went to the one open building – serving as control tower, passenger and freight terminal, and Fixed Based Operator’s (“Official Cessna Dealer”/”Learn To Fly”/Etc) Office – obviously Base Operations back in the day, you practically expected to hear the B-17s cranking up in the background when you weren’t looking out a window – to pay my landing fee and for gas and picked up an airline brochure from the empty passenger lounge along with a coke from the vending machine on my way back to my flying machine. Looking at the brochure while I quenched my thirst, I found the place lived up to its billing. It had one, single engine puddle jumper flight to and from a spot on the Canadian prairies each way on weekdays. It’s now probably a ” Spaceport”. as well.
As a financial guy, I detect the sounds of too much cash sloshing around the Street looking for the Next Big Thing.
Robert wrote: “To put it mildly, this project is hardly a spaceport. It is planned as a casino, a resort, and a flight school with a runway. O-G helps give it the appearance of a spaceport by allowing it to claim orbital launches will take place there.”
The Mojave Air and Space Port is still a spaceport. If the proposed Las Vegas facility is able to put payloads into orbit, then it will earn its spaceport status.
The last time Robert reported on this Las Vegas project, the company didn’t mention a specific launch company to perform this function, just some vague hope that people will be able launch to orbit from there. The company may be making progress on this front.
Finally, the article mentions that the proposed payload launch company is headed by a former SpaceX engineer. This is another case of SpaceX developing space industry leaders, not just launch vehicles and communication constellations.