He talked tourism, joked with Mickey Mouse and didn’t say a thing about space. As noted earlier, the Obama Administration has already made clear what its space policy is in an address at KSC almost two years ago. That’s not going to change in Term 1. It’s out of his in box, handled, stamped, indexed and filed.

Space Florida is essentially empowered like an airport authority, to own, operate, finance, lease, and maximize access to space transportation infrastructure. The Air Force and NASA may (sometimes) wish to provide such services, but historically they have not been able to do it, due to statutory and other limitations.

Thanks, I was hoping you were lurking out there.

Breaking news … President Obama is coming to Orlando on Thursday January 19 to talk about the economy. This would appear to be related to the Florida Republican presidential primary on January 31. No indication he’ll make it 45 miles east to the Space Coast.

Space Florida is essentially empowered like an airport authority, to own, operate, finance, lease, and maximize access to space transportation infrastructure. The Air Force and NASA may (sometimes) wish to provide such services, but historically they have not been able to do it, due to statutory and other limitations.

In addition to assisting SpaceX, Space Florida (or its predecessor agencies) actually arranged over $300M in leaseback financing for the Atlas-5 launch pad infrastructure, and did a similar leaseback deal for the Delta-4 Horizontal Integration Facility (HIF) for about $30M. They are/were actually the owner-of-record for those facilities. They also built and/or own the Space Life Sciences Lab at KSC, and other facilities like Launch Complex 46 and the RLV Hangar at the Shuttle Landing Facility.

NASA now understands that they are not best suited to act as a spaceport authority for many underutilized assets at KSC. Rather than lease them directly to individual companies, it is more prudent to rely on a group like Space Florida to strike deals with industry to operate/maintain them, whether for commercial or government programs.

Starfighters Inc. That’s a name I haven’t seen on the big board. Has our experience with high speed rail or green energy taught you nothing? This is proof of nothing except government hacks love to try to invent industries and pick winners.

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012301120033

Space Florida named three flight providers that have expressed interest in the program: Masten Space Systems of Mojave, Calif.; Zero-G Corp. of Arlington, Va.; and a partnership between Kennedy Space Center-based Starfighters Inc. and Star Lab, a project led by 4Frontiers Corp. of New Port Richey.

The incentives are the latest step in efforts to establish Florida as a hub for microgravity research, part of a broader strategy to diversify space operations after the shuttle.

I keep saying that microgravity is the next Gold Rush. This is more proof.

Typically Florida politicians want their own taxes slashed, but at the same time want more federal tax dollars to come to them. As to Space Florida, it is not clear what actual value they add as middlemen between KSC/CCAFS and the launch companies, and it is hard to see how such a small organization can spend so much on its own staff. They do take credit for anything that gets done.

Well, right now Space Florida is acting as the go-between for a lot of lease agreements between NASA and the private sector. For example, the recent lease of OPF-3 to Boeing for the CST-100. Technically, NASA leased the facility to Space Florida, and Space Florida leased it to Boeing.

Rumor has it a similar arrangement might be in the works with Stratolaunch for the shuttle runway.

My guess is that there’s some sort of legal advantage for doing it this way. Perhaps federal law prevents NASA from directly leasing a facility to the private sector. I dunno. Or maybe there’s an advantage from a liability perspective.

In any case, Space Florida is a major player right now in bringing commercial space to Brevard County.