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Space Science

Nova Scotia to Build Space Tourist Launchpad 164

Posted by Zonk from the going-up-eh dept.
Identity Missing writes "Lockheed Martin is planning on building a commercial spaceport in Nova Scotia Canada. The details are a bit shaky, but apparently the project is serious enough to attract 45 million dollars from the Federal government. The launch pad will specifically be built in Cape Breton, a mostly rural island characterized by low employment, thick colloquial accents, and kitchen fiddle parties. A PDF is available with pictures and a description of the planned orbital glider, the 'Silver Dart,' somewhat lacking the aesthetics of the X Prize winner."
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Nova Scotia to Build Space Tourist Launchpad More

Nova Scotia to Build Space Tourist Launchpad

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  • Ugh... Another Martimes Boondoggle... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CohibaVancouver ( 864662 ) on Friday October 26, 2007 @03:19PM (#21133645)
    Ugh. Sounds like Premier Peckford's pickle palace all over again. The story of the Maritimes is the story of one failed government 'investment' scheme after another. Let's just admit that now that all the fish have been vacuumed up the economy simply can't support the number of people who live there, and leave it at that. Let economic migration deal with the problem.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by LWATCDR ( 28044 )
      Hey $27 per cucumber isn't that expensive.

    • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by gnuman99 ( 746007 )
      Yes. And because the Canadian Government is swimming in cash from its record surplus each year (remember when "Conservatives" repeatedly demanded resignation of Liberal's Minister of Finance when they were in power because surplus meant they weren't doing enough to cut taxes? Will the current minister then resign?). Money means pork. And Conservatives or Liberals mean nothing in terms of ideology. It is just "Blue Party" and "Red Party".

      If Conservative party was any conservative, they would not cut GST but

      • I'm not a Harper fan, and I wasn't a Bullwinke (Mulroney) fan, but it was the Conservatives who brought in the GST, which allowed the Liberals to accumulate the huge surpluses that went to pay down the federal deficit.

        I would have liked to see the latest GST cut be handled differently - only a half-percent instead of 1%, and the rest earmarked for the deficit. After all, the quicker its paid off, the better, and the more of a cushion we have for the next economic downturn.

    • The Maritimes economy is to government subsidies as the BC economy is to pot: yes, it's an important source of income, but a minor part of the whole picture. I, for one, am glad to see people leveraging this region's natural benefits rather than simply giving up and moving away. The spaceport proposal is indeed risky, but if it works it'll be a nice addition to the area; coupled with other efforts (most notably the Atlantica proposal), there is reason enough for people to say and make this region as wealthy
    • Dude, where you from? Calgary? I bet you had one of those "let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark" bumper stickers when Trudeau realized that since Canada exports more oil than we consume, we could entirely free ourselves from the world price on oil.

      It's only in the last 30 years that "now that all the fish have been vacuumed up the economy simply can't support the number of people who live there" became the dominant way of looking at the Atlantic region.

      You know that before Confederation, NS was the m

      • Re:History lesson for you... (Score:5, Informative)

        by ShieldW0lf ( 601553 ) on Friday October 26, 2007 @04:53PM (#21134715) Journal
        There has been ongoing interest in developing a spaceport in this region for some time. Because of its location, they are able to reuse Russian telemetry data.

        This is a great place for such an effort. We are on the ocean and have the worlds deepest harbour nearby. The site is all solid rock, the top of what's left of the Appalachian mountain chain. There is a huge deposit of undersea natural gas nearby waiting to be developed and supply energy needs.

        The population here are the most overeducated, underpaid group of people in the country, there are engineers all over the place that were raised in a naval tradition, and one of the major industries of the provincial capital is educating foreigners, so there's a great foundation for inbound brain drain.

        They aren't the only company interested in this effort either.

        I'm quite looking forward to hopping in the car for a few hours and kicking back in Cape Breton National Park with a case of beer and a joint to watch rocket ships take off.

        • There has been ongoing interest in developing a spaceport in this region for some time. Because of its location, they are able to reuse Russian telemetry data.

          But being so far north they can only launch to high inclination orbits. Getting to geosynchronous orbit from Canada is uneconomic.

          • Getting into a polar orbit, on the other hand ...

            You're losing 600 mph out of 18,000. So you lose 3-1/3% of your overall payload capacity. If you can save 5% on the overall budget because of the local labor market, etc., (or get subsidies that amount to the same) you're ahead of the game, and with $60m in subsidies already ... do the math.

        • There is a huge deposit of undersea natural gas nearby waiting to be developed and supply energy needs.

          You mean Deep Panuke [theglobeandmail.com] or the other ones?

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by rtyhurst ( 460717 )
      West Coast latte swillin' tofu gobbler!

      Me and the boys up Cape Breton way have been "launchin'" for years, 'cept on Newfie Screech not yer fancy new fangled liquid oxygen an' stuff!

      Ye'll be laughin' out the other side o' yer face when we're breakin' the sound barrier over yer 200 square foot $1 million West End condo!

      Slainte!

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by theshowmecanuck ( 703852 )
        Lard tunderrin jaisus ya talk damn funny boiy. Noew lets strap one o' dem rocket tingies to da back o' m' dory an take a real ride!

        apologies to cape bretoners... couldn't help myself.

        hey you gotta admit this might be a lot better than shovelling coal.
      • not yer fancy new fangled liquid oxygen an' stuff!

        Man, they got some heavy water in Nova Scotia, eh?

  • Space Beer (Score:3, Interesting)

    by WormholeFiend ( 674934 ) on Friday October 26, 2007 @03:19PM (#21133649)
    I hope they serve Alexander Keith's on those space flights!

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by MoOsEb0y ( 2177 )
      and Timbits for the in-flight snack!
      • If theres no dedicated line for hockey night in canada, whats the point?!
      • Bah. Tim Hortons went to shit after Wendys bought it. It'll continue until peoples psychological perceptions of the Tim Hortons brand finally catch up to reality. Such is the value of a good name in the modern economy.

        • > "Bah. Tim Hortons went to shit after Wendys bought it. It'll continue until peoples psychological perceptions of the Tim Hortons brand finally catch up to reality. Such is the value of a good name in the modern economy."

          Couldn't agree more. Cutting down the size of the donuts, mass-manufactured, frozen, shipped, then nuked at the store. Gross. The only thing worse is those Krispy Kreme lard/donuts.

          • The Tim Hortonses in Calgary always have a ridiculously long queue between 6:30 and 8:30AM, and there's no shortage of coffee shops downtown. Maybe it's westerners showing solidarity with the other coast in an effort to squeeze the traditional power in the middle.
  • My first thought:

    Zero-G Riverdance
  • is it just me, or does the image show 8 passengers and no pilot?

    sure, fly it remotely to save costs, i know...but if the system was that good, why not put it into regular commercial aviation?

  • reminds me of those rural towns building landing strips for ufo's. Scrape off some land, put up a few signs, and wait for the tourists to come into town to spend money.

  • Why Nova Scotia? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Eightyford ( 893696 ) on Friday October 26, 2007 @03:25PM (#21133729) Homepage
    Well Nova Scotia isn't very close to the equator (where spaceports belong), but maybe the province will be expanding someday soon?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turks_and_Caicos_Islands [wikipedia.org]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_new_Canadian_provinces_and_territories [wikipedia.org]
    • It is at least viable according to NASA. It has long been listed as one of many emergency landing sites for the space shuttle (at least it was in the past, not sure if that is still true). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_International_Airport#Alternate_space_shuttle_landing_site [wikipedia.org] The summary wasn't kidding about 'kitchen fiddle parties'. Its hillbilly central up there...
      • Landing sites have different requirements to launch sites. When you launch something into space it helps to be near the equator, because the equator is the fastest moving part of the planet. The greater the speed your rocket starts with from the pad the lesser the push you need to give it to get it to where it's going. That translates to a higher payload for a given type of rocket or a smaller rocket for a given payload.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by saider ( 177166 )

          But if you are going into polar orbit (or other high inclination orbit) then the equatorial boost becomes a problem because you have to overcome all that momentum.
      • It is at least viable according to NASA. It has long been listed as one of many emergency landing sites for the space shuttle

        Read carefully. Halifax International Airport is one of a handful of sites along eastern North America where the space shuttle could land if something went wrong during liftoff.

        In other words, in powered flight in the atmosphere, the shuttle *could* maneuver to Halifax if necessary.

        From orbit is an entirely different scenario. You can only land at a location with a latitude l

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Baddas ( 243852 )
      Only if you're aiming for equatorial orbits. Polar orbits aren't biased by location.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by everphilski ( 877346 )
        polar orbits would be dumb for space tourism... space tourism implies regular occurring flights, in order to maximize profit you'd want to make the orbits as 'cheap' velocity wise as possible by using as much of the earths' rotation as possible. Lower latitudes make this possible.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sholden ( 12227 )
      It is the southern most Atlantic coastal part of Canada though, right (launching to the east is even more important - it's the reason you want to be near the equator after all)

      The parts of Canada that are further south would involve launching over the US.

      Or do they have some colonies near the equator to turn into space ports?
      • Actually, there have been talks for the Caribbean nation of Turks And Caicos to join Canada.
        • Actually, there have been talks for the Caribbean nation of Turks And Caicos to join Canada.

          They've been ongoing for more that 100 years. I don't expect to see anything anytime soon.

          And besides, the article mentions Cape Breton, which is already part of Nova Scotia.
    • Who built their Cosmodrome [russianspaceweb.com] 3 degrees further North in Baikonur [wikipedia.org].

  • Weather? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ScentCone ( 795499 ) on Friday October 26, 2007 @03:31PM (#21133781)
    The last time I drove around Cape Breton - it was early October and the colors finally made me understand the red maple leaf on the flag - it was a lovely afternoon. We pitched a small campsite in a place with a name something like "Killmychickencluck," and had a lovely evening. We woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of a bull moose roaming around the camp, and barely fell back asleep. When we woke up again, there was a roughly 2-inch layer of spikey frost on everything. It was spectacular. We tried to talk to the locals about it, but We're Not From Around There, and they didn't take to us very well, I'm afraid. But we were able to gather that the weather just gets more interesting from then until, say, May. Wouldn't it make more sense to park this sort of thing somewhere with a bit more year-round opportunity for doing business, climate-wise? It's a bit of a drive down to Halifax, but there was a lovely Italian place for dinner, and a Holiday Inn with a clean pool. And, men in kilts working the tourist stops. But they had entirely the wrong accent for that, thus producing a sort of Highland Dissonance Syndrome that counteracted all tourist spending urges. Perhaps adding rocket ships to the mix will fix that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Straif ( 172656 )
      If you thought talking to the locals in CB was bad try PEI. Ever since that got that second escalator their smugness has known no bounds.

    • Re:Weather? (Score:4, Funny)

      by everphilski ( 877346 ) on Friday October 26, 2007 @03:59PM (#21134149) Journal
      And, men in kilts working the tourist stops ... Perhaps adding rocket ships to the mix will fix that.

      kilts in space **shudder**

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by l2718 ( 514756 )

      Well, this has the feel of a location chosen by bureaucrats for political reasons rather than be engineers for practical reasons (sorry, I don't have much faith in the government of Canada).

      However, the Baikonur Cosmodrome [russianspaceweb.com] is 3 degrees further North and don't have much better weather. This hasn't stopped the Russian (and Soviet) space operations there for more than 50 years.

  • Dart? Arrow? (Score:4, Informative)

    by BlueStraggler ( 765543 ) on Friday October 26, 2007 @03:31PM (#21133789)

    The Silver Dart name is intended to ride on the coat-tails of the original Silver Dart [wikipedia.org], which also flew out of Nova Scotia. The Canadian Arrow company name also seems to be intended to ride on the coat-tails of the Avro Arrow [wikipedia.org]. So they are trying to associate themselves with the two most famous aircraft in Canadian history, despite having nothing to do with either. And they seem to have overlooked the fact that both of these famous aircraft met ignominious ends, which can't be good for luck.

  • ...welcome our mostly rural, kitchen fiddling, space tourist overlords!
  • A similar venture was funded in my home state in 2001; it just got it's NASA funding [newsok.com] pulled without a single martini served in orbit, far's I can tell. You'd think it was independent contractors with the lowest bid that built the shuttle, sheesh...
    • Yeah, its too bad RpK couldn't keep up with the COTS program... they had problems with investor confidence, among other things. But I suppose it's a Good Thing that NASA picked two companies to win the $500M in COTS money ... not just RpK but also SpaceX. SpaceX is alive and kicking.

  • OK for suborbital and polar orbits, but (Score:5, Informative)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Friday October 26, 2007 @03:35PM (#21133841)
    The high latitude of Nova Scotia makes it more costly to launch for an equatorial orbit. Getting to GEO or lower-latitude LEO orbit would require more fuel. There's a reason why Arianes launch from French Guiana and not Europe.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by chebucto ( 992517 )
      Cape Breton's latitude is roughly the same as Baiknour's, which was the main reason why it was chosen.

  • Chose the spot for a reason? (Score:5, Informative)

    by SamP2 ( 1097897 ) on Friday October 26, 2007 @03:40PM (#21133893)
    Cape Breton is one of the southernmost parts of Canada.

    There are clear physical advantages to building spaceports (or any space launch pads) close to the equator, for reasons other than weather. Gravity is lowest at the equator, due to two reasons: one being Earth an oblate shape and thus an equatorial point is furthest from core and thus has least gravity, the other being the centrifugal spin of the Earth which is strongest at the equator. Put together, this accounts for about 2% less weight, which does not seem much, but does make a difference.

    If you have noticed, both the USA and USSR chose to build their spaceports as south as possible. The most used USA launch spot is in Florida, and in the USSR the Bainokur cosmodrome is located in Kazakhstan, which is not even a part of Russia anymore, but clearly the benefits gotta outweigh the logistical and political diffculties.

    Back on topic of this particular case, once the choice of the country (Canada) has been made, Nova Scotia would seem like a good solution due to the reasons outlined above. The question comes, why Canada? LM is a US company, has huge ties to the defense industry, lots of political connections, and the US in general is more business-friendly than Canada. I find it very hard to believe LM would get out of Canada (be it government, commerce, industry ties, or simply geographical settings) anything they couldn't get in the US. Any ideas?
    • Kazakhstan (51N) is farther North than Cape Breton (46N).

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by debest ( 471937 )

      Cape Breton is one of the southernmost parts of Canada.

      Southernmost part of Cape Breton is at approximately 45.5 degrees north latitute.

      Southernmost part of Ontario is at approximately 42 degrees north latitude.

      There are *lots* of places further south in Canada than Cape Breton!

      • There are *lots* of places further south in Canada than Cape Breton!

        A launch from Cape Breton goes over the ocean. A rocket flying east from southern Ontario goes over some very densely populated areas, many of them in a foreign country that seems to have an issue with other countries even having missiles, let alone firing them into their airspace. Should a Canadian space program need America's permission every time they do a launch? Even worse than the problem of America's government is the problem of America's lawyers, who would wet themselves like an overexcited terr

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Rorschach1 ( 174480 )
      Say what? I've never heard of reduced gravity as being an advantage of launching near the equator. It's all about the Earth's rotation - you pick up about 1,000 mph relative to launching from the poles. That's 1,000 mph less delta V you need to get out of your propulsion system to reach orbit. That's why you'll never see a satellite orbiting east to west.

      And it's not like the exact center of the Earth is the source of its gravity. All of the Earth's mass contributes to the gravity field at any given po

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by bardicknowledge ( 1180337 )
      Being from Cape Breton, I would like to say you obviously have NO idea where in Nova Scotia it is we live. Cape Breton is the whole northern island when you look at a map of Nova Scotia.. which means what? Yes, the whole rest of main land Nova Scotia ( including PEI,NB and the southern parts of the rest of the provinces) are further south.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bidule ( 173941 )

      Cape Breton is one of the southernmost parts of Canada.

      You mean, the northernmost part of Nova Scotia, a province that is further North that Toronto, don't you?

      Do you realize that Cape Breton is North of Ottawa?

  • Cape Breton (Score:4, Funny)

    by jetpack ( 22743 ) on Friday October 26, 2007 @03:41PM (#21133907) Homepage
    This adds a whole new dimension to the phrase "Stay where you're to, and I'll where you're at!"


    Maybe that reference is a tad too regional for /. ;)

  • THE FOG! (Score:4, Informative)

    by boxlight ( 928484 ) on Friday October 26, 2007 @03:45PM (#21133985)
    Cape Breton is one of the foggiest places in Canada (my dear old Newfoundland wins first place on that list).

    Don't let the coastline fool you, this ain't Florida. The northern atlantic is a cold, icy, foggy place most of the year (remember Titanic). I certainly hope you don't need good weather to launch rockets.

    boxlight

  • No, No, No. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Fantastic Lad ( 198284 ) on Friday October 26, 2007 @04:02PM (#21134173)
    Please, no. I like Cape Breton the way it is. It's one of the last holdouts of Shire-like charm and backwardness, where the old, old grandmas of Gaelic descent will tell you that when the electric light came, all the women lost the second sight. If you put a frickin' launch pad in the middle of that, the coffin lid will have another dozen nails pounded home. No thanks. Leave lumbering, ultra-expensive space exploration and spy-satellite deployment to the Americans. We built that ridiculous arm already. That was cute. Like playing in one of those, "Drop the Egg Robot Olympics", but this retarded project is about asking Lockheed Martin to build toxic tinker-toys in the back yard where all the prettiest trees live. No thanks, Mordor.

    Stupid Feds. Put my tax dollars into libraries, bike paths and food inspection agents who are trained to say "No" to hormone laden milk and GMO crops. Thank you.


    -FL

  • The 'Silver Dart [wikipedia.org]' name plays homage to Canada's first plane.

    Frankly, I think they'd do better with some sort of (much less expensive and land-intensive) tie-in to Bell's early high-speed hydroplaning watercraft, the HD-4 [wikipedia.org].

    Whatever they do, it sounds like it will end up in the dictionary under "boondoggle [wikipedia.org]."

  • I mean, using a slingshot or whatever to launch tourists into space. Ouch. I'd want a ship of some sort.
  • That launch site is more convenient to the East Coast US than Spaceport New Mexico or Mojave. It is also well-placed for northern European clients. They should market a 2 week package, 3 days to unwind in Iceland, a week of training and fun in Cape Breton, your suborbital flight, and a couple days to relax afterwards.

    It's pretty high inclination which could grow into accessing the rumored 61 degree orbit of the Bigelow complex.

  • latitude latitude latitude (Score:4, Interesting)

    by museumpeace ( 735109 ) on Friday October 26, 2007 @04:28PM (#21134469) Journal
    Canaveral was a logical space port choice for two reasons. The built in kinetic energy of an object on the earths surface is due to its tangential velocity WRT the earths CG. That decreases as cos(latitude) when you move from equator to pole. As far south in the continental us as you can find a chunk of govt-owned eastern shore is ideal because at 28 north latitude, it has 88% of the KE of an object launched from equator, providing you pitch it into an eastward revolving orbit. That second reason? Since you have to tilt east, your boost trajectory goes safely over unpopulated ocean. Nova Scotia, at an average latitude of 45n only has 70% of the maximum possible KE...you need more fuel to orbit an equal weight of payload than they do in FL. NS only has the shore going for it. Did someone sell the Province the brooklyn bridge too?
    • Golly that must be a real problem for the ESA with all those launches from Kazakhstan, which is farther North than Cape Breton.
    • It'd be a Nova Scotian provincial government...

      At one point (I can't find a link, unfortunately) NS actually had a _toilet seat_ scandal... Kickback/bribery style dirty deal to install mechanized toilet seats that automatically dispense seat covers, in all NS government offices.

      They ended up being sold at auction, some people bought them as collector's items.

      There was even a case of a deputy minister, Michael Zareski, who was about to blow the whistle on all of John Buchanan's crooked dealings. Buchanan's c
      • ISTR something about banning deoderant in workplaces so as to not afflict the allergy people. Was that actually true?
      • Thank [whatever teh godless skeptics pray to] for Lindsay Bayerstein or that bit of news would have badly damaged my faith in Canadians as the clean-and-sane people from North America.
    • What if your desired orbit inclination is (say) 40 degrees? what is the best latitude to launch from in that case? What if you are wanting to do a polar orbit? If the goal is to overfly Russia, Europe or N. Americal you may not want an orbit that places you 200 miles up over the equator because those places you want to look at will be over the horizon

    • The built in kinetic energy of an object on the earths surface is due to its tangential velocity WRT the earths CG. That decreases as cos(latitude) when you move from equator to pole. As far south in the continental us as you can find a chunk of govt-owned eastern shore is ideal because at 28 north latitude, it has 88% of the KE of an object launched from equator, providing you pitch it into an eastward revolving orbit.

      [Emphasis mine.]

      There are many situations in which your objective is not an eastward-revolving orbit (e.g., suborbital flight, circumpolar orbit, or orbital inclinations that are larger than your latitude.) For such orbits, latitude of the launch pad doesn't matter.

      Since you have to tilt east, your boost trajectory goes safely over unpopulated ocean.

      There are plenty of launch pads in the world that don't have this feature. Kazakhstan, for one (whose latitude is higher than Cape Breton's, as another poster pointed out.) Also, there are west-coast launch pads such as Vandenberg Air Force

      • Also for Vandeberg, I think the earth's orbital motion helps to take the west coast out of the way of the ascending rocket when its circumpolar trajectory carries it north (or slightly northwest?)

        Whoops ... now that I recall the coastline of California, it occurs to me that they probably launch towards the south in order to carry the trajectory over the ocean, with a slight westerly component in order to compensate for the velocity vector due to the earth's rotation. Does anyone know for sure? I couldn't find out from the Vandenberg website.

      • Quite correct but nothing spectacularly heavy gets launched from VAFB. As for the heavy lifting Russians did from their more northerly pads, they paid for it: they had to design monster booster stages.
  • That PDF is very old. Did anyone notice the date - 15 December 2005?

    Wonder if they have made any progress since then :). Or at least get some better graphics together.

  • Cape Breton.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CashCarSTAR ( 548853 ) on Friday October 26, 2007 @04:33PM (#21134519)
    Born and raised here. Yes. Really.

    #1. It's not that foggy, in fact it's pretty nice. As well, our climate seems to be shifting closer to what they have in BC, but without the rain, at least for 10 months out of the year.

    #2. Cape Breton is indeed beautiful. Tourists coming to go into space could see what they're leaving behind. I don't believe it's a unique beauty..the coast of California (especially Big Sur) feels very similar to me, but the combination is interesting.

    #3. Unemployment isn't that high. It USED to be, after the natural resource industries collapsed (like they all do), but the population levels have evened out, and it's a pretty big destination for call centers these days. Why? #4.

    #4. Friendly, intelligent (if not college educated) people. You could man such a spaceport with people from the area, not have to pay outlandish wages and still have a good experience for the tourists.
    • http://www.weathernotebook.org/transcripts/2000/01/05.html [weathernotebook.org]

      Scary weather, but who cares? All the coasts will be under 13 feet of ocean in a few years anyway...
      • Our coasts are at least 20 feet high in most places at least for a large chunk of the island. I grew up about 2 blocks away from the edge.There are low coastal areas, but they're pretty uncommon to be honest.

        And yeah, the wind in the Highland areas is bad. That's why there are plans for building a wind farm up there. But AFAIK the proposed spaceport will be in the eastern Inverness area, which doesn't have nearly as much wind.
        • No need to explain, my heritage is 100% Nova Scotian (half Cheticamp, half Spryfield), popped out in Sydney. I've been through the Cabot Trail many times, it's gorgeous.

          Tracking back ancestry on the French side is easier; for the other side we've run into a dead-end. So the assumption is that the English-speaking side of the family were slimeballs, liars and general n'er do-wells. I guess that's why I post at Slashdot but I can't figure out why I'm not now in marketing or advertising.

  • Welcome to Sunnyvale Trailer Park and Spaceport (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    LAHEY: "I'm Jim Lahey, Trailer Park-Spaceport Supervisor, and this is Randy, the Associate Trailer Park-Spaceport Supervisor. Have a drink while I show you around--hey, Randy! Get Ricky away from that rocket!"

    RICKY: "F*** you, Lahey! I'm goin' to the Informational Smace Station!"

    JULIAN: "D**m it, Rick, how are we gonna sell all this dope if you're in space?"

    BUBBLES: "Julian! You promised I'd be the first one to go up in the rocket. What the f*** is Ricky doing with my space man suit?!?"
  • Any spacecraft that resembles a Star Destroyer [google.com] can't be all bad.
  • Build it and they will come. If we build this spaceport here, then people will flock from all over the world to Cape Breton, bringing their cash, and this area will flourish and prosper.

    Two words.

    Mirabel airport.
  • I read this on the CBC [www.cbc.ca] earlier today. I had a neighbour from Cape Breton, Ken. One of the best I ever had. When I saw the headline on CBC, it said "Cape Breton", but the headline here on Slashdot says "Nova Scotia".

    This reminded me when Ken always insisted that Cape Breton is not the same as Nova Scotia, despite being the same province. Maybe regional independence, or identity.
  • This gives "commercial spaceport" a bad name.

    This is why governments waste money, lobbying. No open process, just plunk down the money.

    This is for planetspace, who "has indicated that one of its goals is to send 2,000 tourists into space within the next five years"

    We are talking about a company that appears to be run by marketing people. Witness the full mockup of their rocket and the astronaut training facility.

    In contrast to Scaled, Armadillo, Blue Origin etc, I don't think I've seen a single launch of an
  • I'm an EE who grew up dreaming about spacecraft, and I'd love to move to NS if there was a good job waiting for me there. Wonderful place. Much nicer than Houston, for example.

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