Abstract
The ink was barely dry on the US$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 up the wrong way, including Dick Rutan, 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 the race was on.
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Notes
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Just contact NMSA’s offices at 901 E. University Ave, Suite 965L, Las Cruces, NM 88001, USA, phone: 575-373-6110.
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www.caribbeanspaceport.com, Caribbean Spaceport, Sphinx Building, Baron G.A. Tindalplein, Suite #185, 1019 TW Amsterdam, The Netherlands, e-mail: info@CaribbeanSpaceport.com, phone: +31-(0)6 123-66-000 or +31 (0)6-506-07-110, fax: +31 (0)20-776-2775.
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www.spaceportsweden.com, e-mail: info@spaceportsweden.com, Twitter: @SpaceportSweden, phone: +46 (0) 980 80 880, Mon–Fri 09:00–17:00hrs CET.
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An example of this regulatory approval is placing spacecraft on the United States Munitions List (USML). For years, the US commercial space industry fought to remove export restrictions placed on it during the 1990s. In 2013, change was on the horizon, but it was a case of one step forward, two steps back because man-rated suborbital spacecraft were added to the list! This is a problem because any item on the USML requires an export license from the US State Department. Even worse, putting suborbital spacecraft on the USML places them under the restrictive umbrella of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR). Why is this being done? The 1990s restrictions were intended to block the flow of space technologies to nations such as China and to maintain US space competitiveness. The upshot of this was that the restrictions harmed rather than strengthened the US commercial satellite industry; US satellite makers were denied access to foreign markets and lower-cost launchers for their products. The result? A significant US share of the global commercial satellite market was lost to China! And you wonder why politicians are unpopular! But, in December 2012, after years of lobbying by the US satellite industry, a provision in the 2013 defense authorization Bill passed by the US Congress struck out the 1990s language that placed satellites and related items on the USML.
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Mojave Air and Space Port, 1434 Flightline, Mojave, CA 93501, USA, e-mail: info@mojaveairport.com, phone: (661) 824 2433.
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Seedhouse, E. (2014). Spaceports. In: Suborbital. Springer Praxis Books(). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03485-0_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03485-0_6
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