Mid-Atlantic Commercial Spaceport Makes First Launch 67
PeeAitchPee writes "East Coast residents of the US were treated to the first launch from the mid-Atlantic region's commercial spaceport. The 69-foot Minotaur I rocket soared from the launch pad at 7 a.m. ET, after teams spent the week resolving a glitch in software for one of the satellites that had scrubbed a liftoff on Monday. I witnessed the launch while driving to BWI airport this morning and it was beautiful! It left a zig-zag contrail in the southern sky and the separation / ignition of one of the upper stages was clearly visible." The spaceport, a commercial collaboration of Virginia and Maryland, is on the Delmarva peninsula south of the Maryland line, just west of Chincoteague Island.
Re:How long before space tourism is widespread? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Saskatchewan port still in progress (Score:1, Informative)
http://davinciproject.com/news/index.php [davinciproject.com]
Re:Looks like a boondoggle (Score:4, Informative)
This is not a new construction. This is land (and launch pads) leased from the Wallops Island [nasa.gov] facility. NASA has been launching stuff from there for decades.
Video of Launch and More Info (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Looks like a boondoggle (Score:5, Informative)
So what if it's a economically challened area, the STATE (and then states) funded the launch pad, NOT the feds. They are lifting themselves up for their own area, not looking for federal handouts. And ranges DON'T hire rocket scientists at all (unless the scientist is looking for a stiff pay cut). These are typical building maintenance and electronic types. Even if they could launch from their own port, it presents two problems. ALL federally controlled space ports are overpriced since their government jobs, and they want/need to have launch sites in different areas to allow different orbital insertion planes. The bottom line is the military likes having places like this or Spaceport Alaska to give them more options and lower overhead.
You should also point to this launch site, since it's a heck of a lot closer:
http://www.spacetoday.org/Rockets/Spaceports/Laun
And no, most military launches aren't any more secure than civilian launches. EVERYBODY is concerned when there is a multi-million dollar highly-explosive vehicle sitting on the launchpad. Only some launches are under super tight security (and contained unlabelled/mis-labelled cargo).
Re:Mid-Atlantic? Stupid name for a region. (Score:1, Informative)