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Well, saw that coming. They plan to open a spaceport in Changi, the eastern side of the island, by 2009. Space Adventures plans an ``integrated spaceport'' -- integrated is a very popular word here, almost as popular as ISO 9000, if you can imagine -- with a museum, public education and interactive (another popular word) visitor centre, astronaut training facilities, and suborbital spaceflights. The Singapore Tourism Board is quite happy with the idea.
Attractions are to include neutral-bouyancy tanks for simulated spacewalks, centrifuge experiences, parabolic flights for weightlessness experiences, jet aircraft flights, and suborbital flights starting from an M-55X carrier aircraft that I've never heard of before and a spacecraft to be designed by the Myasishchev Design Bureau, which I've also never heard of. They estimate it'll cost around S$200 million dollars, and they believe it'll generate about three billion dollars (Singapore dollars, I think) and around 5,000 jobs over ten years, which, well, I'll just let them carry on with that belief since I'd really like to see it built, and it'll keep people primed for the space elevator project.
There are similar spaceports to be built in the United Arab Emirates (yeah, saw that coming too) and Las Crusces, New Mexico. Unrelated but I believe curious is that I don't believe the city has a roller coaster, which I grant isn't a prerequisite but somehow seems connected. (Check that: Roller coaster databases indicate three should exist on Sentosa, although I've never seen them, possibly because one is, apparently, an indoor coaster.)
Trivia: X-15 vehicle 3 held the record altitude height for winged craft flight at 354,200 feet, until the Space Shuttle Columbia's first flight. Source: Transiting from Air to Space: The North American X-15, Robert S Houston, Richard P Hallion, Ronald G Boston. From The Hypersonic Revolution: Case Studies in the History of Hypersonic Technology, Air Force History and Museums Program.
Currently Reading: Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898, by Edwin G Burrows, Mike Wallace.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-20 04:42 pm (UTC)The M-55 "Mystic" is a high altitude reconnaissance plane similar to the Lockheed U-2
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-21 01:31 am (UTC)Ah, thank you. I wasn't intending to be snotty or dismissive in saying I'd never heard of them, mind you; I just honestly never had and there's few better ways to get an explanation than to say something like that. Still, 2009 seems pretty close if they haven't actually built the demonstration model spacecraft yet ...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-20 05:13 pm (UTC)As for the spaceports, this is the kind of thing that I'll believe when I see due to the poor track record so far of new space projects (government included) actually getting anywhere…
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-21 01:37 am (UTC)I believe buzzwords are regarded as good luck tokens, here. Certainly ISO 9000 is.
As for actually building them ... well, despite the abundance of astronauts on the board of directors (have you ever heard of astronauts on the board of directors of a company that wasn't flying into bankruptcy? Other than Alan Shepard, I mean?) it seems like they're building something inexpensive enough that it could be established, at least -- heck, it is only about US $100 million; there are companies that can spend that much deciding whether to have a square or a rhombus tilting right in their logo and not notice it -- and after that who knows exactly how things would end up developing. Except that Singapore and the Emirates would be mighty reluctant to let them go to waste, once built, since they quite want the prestige of the spaceports.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-22 08:40 am (UTC)and for that matter, what is OEM ? :D *wags*
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-22 08:42 am (UTC)ISO used to be the replacement for ASA, and if it's got a new meaning, I'd like to know...
Also, I have a hint what OEM means, but just not what the letters stand for...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-23 02:19 pm (UTC)--Chiaroscuro
(no subject)
Date: 2006-02-23 04:34 pm (UTC)Oh, yes. (Sorry about that, missed the original comments.) ISO is International Standards Organization, and 9000 is just the catchy standard number. There are other variants like ISO 9000-2000, a version updated around the year, well, you know, and there are more ISO 9000 variants based on customizing its needs to particular industries.
Spaceports and rockets and racers, oh my!
Date: 2006-02-24 02:17 pm (UTC)Peter Diamandis and Michael Ansari (I'm sure they're two different people, but I'm too rushed to disentangle their responsibilities just now) have their fingers in a lot of pies -- Space Adventures, the X Prize (http://www.xprizefoundation.com/), the Rocket Racing League (http://www.rocketracingleague.com/) (it's like NASCAR meets Heinlein, except NASCAR evolved from moonshiners outrunning the Feds on dangerously unfinished roads), and P.D. is now part of the board of the Foresight Nanotech Institute (http://foresight.org/about/directors.html).
I'm still waiting for Elon Musk's SpaceX (http://www.spacex.com) to launch its Falcon rocket from Kwajalein Atoll, and then get around to lofting Bigelow Aerospace's (http://www.bigelowaerospace.com/) Nautilus station. Which probably stands a better chance of getting finished than the ISS.
Re: Spaceports and rockets and racers, oh my!
Date: 2006-02-26 03:11 pm (UTC)I really do hope that between all these competitors we do hit somebody who's able to get into space. Even one marginally successful venture would do a lot to make space rather more accessible.