Spaceports: A Primer

Abstract

October 2004. The ink was barely dry on the $10 million Ansari X-Prize winning check before a potentially equally lucrative space race was announced; the competition between spaceports. Kick-starting the contest was Peter Mitchell, director of the New Mexico Office for Space Commercialization, who was present at Mojave Airport on the day that SpaceShipOne (SS1) made history. “Today doesn’t belong to New Mexico, the day belongs to the gentlemen up here … that made this dream become a reality,” Mitchell told reporters. “Tomorrow, however, we focus on bringing the spoils of this dream to the state of New Mexico”. Not surprisingly, the remark rubbed some people the wrong way, including Dick Rutan, the brother of SS1 designer Burt Rutan, and a member of the Mojave airport district’s board of directors. He promised to give Mitchell a run for his money and so the race was on (Fig. 1.1).