Spaceports: A Definition and Brief History

Abstract

Spaceports have been a mainstay of science fiction for decades (Fig. 2.1). Think of the spaceports in Elysium or The Fifth Element, or Mos Eisley, perhaps the most famous spaceport to grace the silver screen. Mos Eisley, as Star Wars fans will know, is the low-grade concrete structure that appears in the first film of the franchise. Home to the Mos Eisley Cantina, the Star Wars version of a spaceport includes a docking bay (Docking Bay 94) which houses the Millenium Falcon, and the aforementioned cantina which is the haunt of all manner of characters, including a band of alien musicians—the Figrin D’an and the Modal Nodes. But in the real world, what is a spaceport? Well, one way to answer that is to consider the types of people and service providers who make up the space industry and to review the features you might expect to see when you visit one of these facilities. We’ll begin with the impending manned commercial spaceflight industry and consider what facilities will be needed by the Blue Origins and Virgin Galactics of this world. We already know this industry will depend upon the two distinct kinds of space adventurer mentioned in the previous chapter. These future spaceflight participants will need training facilities, which will be co-located at the spaceports. Centrifuges, hypobaric chambers, spatial disorientation trainers, classrooms, dunker training equipment; it all needs to be there (Table 2.1).