A reader emailed me yesterday and asked, in essence, “When are you going to talk about Spaceport Sheboygan?” Yes, I have been remiss in reviewing the latest in Wisconsin space policy developments (a phrase rarely uttered in the annals of history, I’m certain.) Last week a committee of the Wisconsin State Senate held a hearing on a measure that would create a “Wisconsin Aerospace Authority” intended to promote the development of a spaceport on the shore of Lake Michigan in Sheboygan, about 80 kilometers north of Milwaukee. There is already a “spaceport” there, used exclusively for amateur rocketry and educational projects, but some in the state want to develop a full-fledged spaceport to serve government and commercial launches. The legislation (SB 352), according to the article, would “allow the authority to design and develop spaceports and spacecraft, and would require the state to establish a spaceport in Sheboygan.”
Testifying at the hearing, George French, president of Oklahoma-based Rocketplane Ltd., said that “Kennedy Space Center representatives have inspected the site and deemed it appropriate” and “[t]he spaceport would likely be able to get money from sources such as the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the military and venture capitalists,” according to the article. It’s not clear what the basis of some of those claims, are, though, particularly since NASA has shown no public interest in developing new spaceports.
As a columnist for the University of Wisconsin newspaper The Daily Cardinal put it: “I would never have expected to hear the words ‘Sheboygan’ and ‘space travel’ so closely linked in my lifetime. Sheboygan conjures to mind images of brats, beer, fishing and golfing, not rocketry.”
Meanwhile, the Florida Space Authority held a hearing yesterday on the possibility of establishing a new commercial spaceport outside of Cape Canaveral to serve suborbital space tourism and other suborbital and orbital markets. There has been discussion in the state for months on how to best serve some of these up-and-coming markets, given the barriers to operating at the Cape and the aggressive efforts of states like New Mexico and Oklahoma to serve those markets. At Wednesday’s hearing there appeared to be some concern by state officials about the state backing away from the Cape entirely, but a willingness to support any efforts by other sites, notably existing airports, to obtain FAA spaceport licenses.
[Disclosure: my employer performed a study for the FSA about the potential for a new commercial spaceport in the state; this report was discussed at the Wednesday meeting. It is my understanding that FSA will make this report available to the public through its web site in the near future.]
