Post by Kalvis on Jan 31, 2006 12:37:38 GMT -6
Now I'm not a huge fanatic of human space flight, but this story caught my attention. It was on the front page of the Sunday (29 Jan 2006) Chicago Tribune . Kinda neat that some day we could drive just a few hours north of Chicago and watch extremely wealthy citizens take a 100 km vertical joy ride into space.
Here's the link: www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0601290436jan29,0,5171516.story?track=mostemailedlink
It's possible that the link won't work, so I've pasted the whole article below. Sorry that it's kinda long...
Sheboygan wants to be big cheese in space
Wisconsin town sets sights on strange new world of astro-tourism
By Tim Jones
Tribune national correspondent
Published January 29, 2006
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. -- Some people, as Robert Kennedy often said, are content to look at the world and ask why.
But in Sheboygan, where untold thousands of tons of sausage have been crammed into sheep casings, some yearn for a life beyond the smoky barbecue haze of the "Bratwurst Capital of the World." So they look to the heavens and ask why not?
Why not make Sheboygan a launch pad to outer space?
Why let the legendary Cape Canaveral be the nation's tourist magnet for most things space when Sheboygan could just as easily be the Midwest space research center and 21st Century catapult, hurling rockets and vaulting adventurous people into the wild black yonder?
That's the plan Sheboygan officials envision. Build on an existing annual rocketry event on the western shore of Lake Michigan. Attract millions of the curious from surrounding states by converting a hulking World War II-vintage armory into a space research center and build a planetarium next door. And then, with an infusion of private and public money, cash in on the next new frontier--commercial tourism that would carry small groups of people in rocket jet vehicles for half-hour, quarter million-dollar, suborbital rides into space.
It's tempting to dismiss "Spaceport Sheboygan," as it is called, as another hokey Wisconsin tourist gimmick in a state where communities boast of enormous plastic cows, a gigantic penny and the world's biggest fiberglass fish (143 feet long). Just about an hour north of here, in tiny Poland, a farmer last year turned a 42-foot-long fuel tank on its head and put a metal platform on top, making it the state's only "U.F.O. Landing Port."
"We're Not the Only Ones," reads the sign beneath Poland's metal welcome mat for little green people from far away.
Might not be so goofy
Despite predictable jokes about sending brat-shaped, mustard-slathered rockets into space, the Sheboygan proposal might not be goofy at all. In fact, communities in Florida, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, California, Alaska and several other states are also vying for a piece of the evolving space tourism business, and they have assembled armies of lawyers, financiers, deep-pocketed CEOs and politicians to prime the galactic pump.
Along Lake Michigan, Jim Testwuide, a local businessman involved in the Wisconsin proposal, said, "It's not just five sod-lifters from Sheboygan" with a big idea.
"We feel it has legs to take off," Testwuide said.
Here's why. Sheboygan has been firing small rockets into the atmosphere--some as high as 35 miles--for a decade, as part of the popular Rockets for Schools program. The area boasts a massive block of restricted airspace over Lake Michigan, granted by the government more than a half-century ago for military munitions testing. This over-the-water no-fly zone provides an ideal safety buffer for vertical rocket and horizontal jet plane space launches. The Federal Aviation Administration has already granted Sheboygan authorization for suborbital flights, and horizontal launches would fit neatly into the Sheboygan plan.
"Nobody's talking about launching gigantic missiles off," Testwuide said, trying to dispel the image of a northern Cape Canaveral. "We're talking space planes, not rockets."
Former astronauts, including James Lovell, have endorsed the Spaceport Sheboygan proposal. Plenty of area politicians have joined the why-not chorus. The Wisconsin Legislature is considering a measure ("out of this world," claimed the bill's sponsor) to create a state aerospace authority, which could sell up to $100 million in bonds to purchase yet-to-be-identified land and build a launch facility.
Sheboygan is the only proposed Midwestern site, prompting Lovell to call it "a rare opportunity to create this compelling regional destination."
Supporters downplay concerns about cold weather and emphasize that the tourist ventures would involve planes, not rockets, that take off from airport-like runways. At an altitude of about 35,000 feet, a rocket plane attached to the jet and carrying tourists would detach and zoom to an altitude of perhaps 60 miles. Then it would return for a landing at the launch site.
In the broader context of old cities reinventing themselves--Pittsburgh moving from big steel to high-tech, and Raleigh, N.C., from textiles and tobacco to technology and education--Sheboygan is but one player on a long list of communities trying to plan for the future. By any measure, though, Spaceport Sheboygan is quite a leap, as it is for most other communities vying for the pole position in the risky and expensive commercial space race.
But it's doable, supporters insist. And it is, they add, an imperative with a familiar ring to it. Just as the Soviets took the lead in the space race in the 1950s and early '60s, the Russians currently own the nascent market for space tourism.
"There has been a pent-up demand for space for a long time," said George French, president of Rocketplane Ltd. Inc., an Oklahoma-based company that is building a reusable spaceship, similar to a private jet with a rocket attached.
"The Baby Boomers who grew up on `2001: A Space Odyssey' expected that they would be able to fly [into space]. It isn't going to happen unless states and the private sector do something," French said.
Some are moving faster than others. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush asked state lawmakers this month to commit $55 million in next year's budget to attract new space ventures to Florida. Bush is also pushing the development of a commercial spaceport, which would operate much like a commercial service airport.
New Mexico last month committed to spending about $130 million--roughly half the cost of construction--to build a desert launch facility that would be used by British entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic airline. Sightseeing spaceflights from the site near the White Sands Missile Range are scheduled to begin in late 2008, although there is some political resistance to using state money for the launch site while the state has other demands.
Groundbreaking next winter
Sheboygan is not that far down the development road. The city plans a groundbreaking for the proposed space center next winter, with a targeted opening date of March 2008. Building a launch site for commercial space travel may be years down the road because private and public financing, public support and political will to endorse it are not assured.
And the trips are, to say the least, pricey--anywhere from $200,000 to $350,000 for an adventure that lasts about as long as America's first astronaut in space, Alan Shepard, took for his inaugural suborbital leap in 1961.
"It's absolutely feasible to have a spaceport anywhere there is interest and where economically it makes sense to do it," said Jim Banke, vice president of Florida operations for the Space Foundation, a Colorado Springs-based non-profit advocate for the space industry.
"But it has to make economic sense," Banke said
To which Testwuide says, why not?
"We're going to bring Sheboygan out of the oompah band stage," he said.
----------
Here's the link: www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0601290436jan29,0,5171516.story?track=mostemailedlink
It's possible that the link won't work, so I've pasted the whole article below. Sorry that it's kinda long...
Sheboygan wants to be big cheese in space
Wisconsin town sets sights on strange new world of astro-tourism
By Tim Jones
Tribune national correspondent
Published January 29, 2006
SHEBOYGAN, Wis. -- Some people, as Robert Kennedy often said, are content to look at the world and ask why.
But in Sheboygan, where untold thousands of tons of sausage have been crammed into sheep casings, some yearn for a life beyond the smoky barbecue haze of the "Bratwurst Capital of the World." So they look to the heavens and ask why not?
Why not make Sheboygan a launch pad to outer space?
Why let the legendary Cape Canaveral be the nation's tourist magnet for most things space when Sheboygan could just as easily be the Midwest space research center and 21st Century catapult, hurling rockets and vaulting adventurous people into the wild black yonder?
That's the plan Sheboygan officials envision. Build on an existing annual rocketry event on the western shore of Lake Michigan. Attract millions of the curious from surrounding states by converting a hulking World War II-vintage armory into a space research center and build a planetarium next door. And then, with an infusion of private and public money, cash in on the next new frontier--commercial tourism that would carry small groups of people in rocket jet vehicles for half-hour, quarter million-dollar, suborbital rides into space.
It's tempting to dismiss "Spaceport Sheboygan," as it is called, as another hokey Wisconsin tourist gimmick in a state where communities boast of enormous plastic cows, a gigantic penny and the world's biggest fiberglass fish (143 feet long). Just about an hour north of here, in tiny Poland, a farmer last year turned a 42-foot-long fuel tank on its head and put a metal platform on top, making it the state's only "U.F.O. Landing Port."
"We're Not the Only Ones," reads the sign beneath Poland's metal welcome mat for little green people from far away.
Might not be so goofy
Despite predictable jokes about sending brat-shaped, mustard-slathered rockets into space, the Sheboygan proposal might not be goofy at all. In fact, communities in Florida, Oklahoma, New Mexico, Texas, California, Alaska and several other states are also vying for a piece of the evolving space tourism business, and they have assembled armies of lawyers, financiers, deep-pocketed CEOs and politicians to prime the galactic pump.
Along Lake Michigan, Jim Testwuide, a local businessman involved in the Wisconsin proposal, said, "It's not just five sod-lifters from Sheboygan" with a big idea.
"We feel it has legs to take off," Testwuide said.
Here's why. Sheboygan has been firing small rockets into the atmosphere--some as high as 35 miles--for a decade, as part of the popular Rockets for Schools program. The area boasts a massive block of restricted airspace over Lake Michigan, granted by the government more than a half-century ago for military munitions testing. This over-the-water no-fly zone provides an ideal safety buffer for vertical rocket and horizontal jet plane space launches. The Federal Aviation Administration has already granted Sheboygan authorization for suborbital flights, and horizontal launches would fit neatly into the Sheboygan plan.
"Nobody's talking about launching gigantic missiles off," Testwuide said, trying to dispel the image of a northern Cape Canaveral. "We're talking space planes, not rockets."
Former astronauts, including James Lovell, have endorsed the Spaceport Sheboygan proposal. Plenty of area politicians have joined the why-not chorus. The Wisconsin Legislature is considering a measure ("out of this world," claimed the bill's sponsor) to create a state aerospace authority, which could sell up to $100 million in bonds to purchase yet-to-be-identified land and build a launch facility.
Sheboygan is the only proposed Midwestern site, prompting Lovell to call it "a rare opportunity to create this compelling regional destination."
Supporters downplay concerns about cold weather and emphasize that the tourist ventures would involve planes, not rockets, that take off from airport-like runways. At an altitude of about 35,000 feet, a rocket plane attached to the jet and carrying tourists would detach and zoom to an altitude of perhaps 60 miles. Then it would return for a landing at the launch site.
In the broader context of old cities reinventing themselves--Pittsburgh moving from big steel to high-tech, and Raleigh, N.C., from textiles and tobacco to technology and education--Sheboygan is but one player on a long list of communities trying to plan for the future. By any measure, though, Spaceport Sheboygan is quite a leap, as it is for most other communities vying for the pole position in the risky and expensive commercial space race.
But it's doable, supporters insist. And it is, they add, an imperative with a familiar ring to it. Just as the Soviets took the lead in the space race in the 1950s and early '60s, the Russians currently own the nascent market for space tourism.
"There has been a pent-up demand for space for a long time," said George French, president of Rocketplane Ltd. Inc., an Oklahoma-based company that is building a reusable spaceship, similar to a private jet with a rocket attached.
"The Baby Boomers who grew up on `2001: A Space Odyssey' expected that they would be able to fly [into space]. It isn't going to happen unless states and the private sector do something," French said.
Some are moving faster than others. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush asked state lawmakers this month to commit $55 million in next year's budget to attract new space ventures to Florida. Bush is also pushing the development of a commercial spaceport, which would operate much like a commercial service airport.
New Mexico last month committed to spending about $130 million--roughly half the cost of construction--to build a desert launch facility that would be used by British entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic airline. Sightseeing spaceflights from the site near the White Sands Missile Range are scheduled to begin in late 2008, although there is some political resistance to using state money for the launch site while the state has other demands.
Groundbreaking next winter
Sheboygan is not that far down the development road. The city plans a groundbreaking for the proposed space center next winter, with a targeted opening date of March 2008. Building a launch site for commercial space travel may be years down the road because private and public financing, public support and political will to endorse it are not assured.
And the trips are, to say the least, pricey--anywhere from $200,000 to $350,000 for an adventure that lasts about as long as America's first astronaut in space, Alan Shepard, took for his inaugural suborbital leap in 1961.
"It's absolutely feasible to have a spaceport anywhere there is interest and where economically it makes sense to do it," said Jim Banke, vice president of Florida operations for the Space Foundation, a Colorado Springs-based non-profit advocate for the space industry.
"But it has to make economic sense," Banke said
To which Testwuide says, why not?
"We're going to bring Sheboygan out of the oompah band stage," he said.
----------
