Opportunity is knocking

The private space industry is finally getting to be serious business: today's announcement by the Southwest Research Institute about its agreement to purchase places on suborbital flights from Virgin Galactic and XCOR make it clear that the so-called "NewSpace" industry is past the giggle stage. Certainly the flurry of news reports filed in response to the announcement would seem to indicate that is the case.

Here in Oklahoma, respectability for commercial space efforts by private entrepreneurs has been held back by the Rocketplane debacle, in which state tax credits were awarded to a company that promised suborbital rides for "space tourists" launched from right here in Oklahoma. Those plans evaporated as the company seemed to do nothing but seek financing for its ever-increasing development costs before finally closing its Oklahoma office, leaving the state with no return on its investment.

But while Rocketplane never took off, Oklahoma did see a small return on its investment in another venture for the NewSpace industry: the Oklahoma Spaceport, which has been used extensively by Texas company Armadillo Aerospace for development and testing of its own privately-financed space vehicles.

Unfortunately, this has not been enough to keep Governor Fallin from announcing that the agency that oversees the Spaceport - the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority - will be shut down due to the state's current budget problems.

It would be a shame if this turned out to be a lost opportunity. Virgin Galactic's SpaceShip Two is designed to be flown twice a day. XCOR's Lynx is said to be shooting for twice that many flights per day. According to some reports, today's announcement by SWRI indicates that the market for suborbital research - powered by flights much cheaper than anything previously available - could ultimately be bigger than the space tourism market.

All those flights are going to need to launch from somewhere. Perhaps the Oklahoma Spaceport could be one such location. What if a private investor or investors were to purchase it - or at least take over operations, thus privatizing it? Oklahoma would thus have the foundation for its own private space industry, catering to the likes of Virgin, XCOR, Armadillo, Blue Origin & Masten Space Systems: currently representing an investment worth $1 billion, certainly not a sum to be giggled about. And it could provide a base for home-grown efforts: not just competitors but support companies, as well - just as Tinker Air Base is supported by its own network of private companies here in the state.

Is anybody looking into this? I hope so.