County commissioners in Brazoria County, south of Houston, have agreed to begin work on a spaceport near a wildlife refuge in the county’s southern tip, according to an article in the local newspaper, The Facts. That sounds impressive, until you read what’s covered under the deal: an access road and a concrete launch pad, either 20-by-20 or 40-by-40 feet. Building the pad “shouldn’t take crews longer than a week”, a country official told the paper. The focus of the spaceport is on small-scale suborbital launches in the near term, primarily by amateur and university groups, but county officials hope to be able to expand the spaceport in the future to support more ambitious commercial launches. Two other sites in Texas are also interested in spaceports; that doesn’t include Jeff Bezos’ ranch in West Texas, which will reportedly be the site for tests of Blue Origin’s rumored suborbital vehicle.
