Certification Expected Next Month

The FAA is expected to issue full certification next month to Mojave Airport (CA) -- as the world's first commercial spaceport.

"It's what happens when you energize an emerging industry. You stimulate innovative thinking and that's what happened," said Mojave Airport manager Stuart Witt, in an interview with Space.Com. "I think it's going to be a wild ride the next 20 years as this industry emerges."

Already, Mojave is home to Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites, a leading contender for the Ansari X-Prize. XCOR Aerospace is there, as are Orbital Science Corp. and others. In fact, there are new space-oriented businesses popping up all over the field and Witt is confident that, once the FAA licenses the spaceport, more will follow.

"There are no showstoppers. We're going to get our license," said Witt.

But getting there has been a lesson in deciphering and completing government paper work.

There are environmental issues. FAA/AST officials want to ensure that spaceport tenants properly handle and dispose of propellants. New rules have to be created to deal with the migration of commercial space vehicles through the airspace both on the way up and on the way down. There are NOTAMs to issue and TFRs to post.

"The FAA is now finding that the statutes as crafted don't fit. So now they have to be very liberal in their interpretations of the law in order to accommodate the emerging technologies," Witt said.

There are, according to Space.Com, also turtles. Gopherus agassizii, to be precise. According to the California Endangered Species Act of 1989, Gopherus (below) is almost gonus. For Witt, that means a lot of extra work.

"Ironically, at 300 takeoffs and landings a day, nobody asked us to ever do a tortoise check. But before I can clear a spaceship to land, I have to do a tortoise check of the primary runway," said Witt.

Witt himself has a bit of a fan club growing in the Mojave Desert. "Under Witt's leadership, Mojave has become an amazing incubator for entrepreneurial space companies such as Scaled Composites, XCOR and Interorbital," Ansari X-Prize Chairman Peter Diamandis told SPACE.com. "I'm excited that this historic venue should become one of the first truly commercial spaceports."

The Ansari X-Prize organization, however, won't be awarded at Mojave. Instead, Diamandis says his group has chosen Los Cruses (NM). The X-Prize guru says he hopes both Mojave and Los Cruses develop into incubators for private space fir In his vision, he sees the Boeings and Airbuses of tomorrow starting out at either of those two locations.

FMI: www.mojaveairport.com