14 DAY TRIAL // The city of Aurora, Colorado could become home to a new American spaceport, if state officials manage to set a new project in motion. They suggest that the Front Range Airport can be converted to support suborbital launches with moderate investments.
The FRA occupies a total of 4,000 acres (1,619 hectares) of land, and is surrounded by an additional 6,000 acres (2,428 hectares) of privately owned, non-residential land. This makes it an ideal location for reconversion, while at the same time reducing the risk to the civilian population.
Many state officials are very keen on keeping Colorado on the inside corner of the rapidly developing space industry, which has thus far extended into states such as Oklahoma, Texas, Virginia, Florida, New Mexico, California, and even Alaska, Space reports.
In addition to serving as a base of operations for companies flying private missions to the edge of space, the prospective spaceport could also be used as a part of a larger network, enabling point-to-point, suborbital travel for paying passengers.
The US Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) has already received a letter of intent regarding the conversion of the Front Range Airport from Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, in December 2011.
Three months later, the entire Colorado congressional delegation expressed its support for this initiative, in a letter sent to the AST. In order to attract operators, Hickenlooper has recently signed a bill that reduces the legal exposure of private spaceflight companies that may choose to use the FRA.
“A spaceport [allows] us to conceive of flying to Australia in a couple of hours […] and that really does begin to revolutionize how we think about, not just travel, but how we do business,” Hickenlooper told attendants at the 28th National Space Symposium, which was held last month in Colorado Springs.
“The potential of horizontal take-off commercial spaceflight facilities in Colorado would soon position Colorado as the hub of civilian spaceflight activities in the country, similar to the status held by Cape Kennedy and Houston,” the newly signed bill says.
“Airports are changing the way they do business, because outside pressures have dramatically changed airports – specifically, general aviation airports,” explains the Executive Director of the Front Range Airport, Dennis Heap, who has been managing the facility for the past 18 years.