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Spaceport loan bill shelved
| Monday, May 8 2006 10:20 PM
Last Updated: Monday, May 8 2006 10:51 PM
SACRAMENTO -- Legislation to loan $11 million in state funds to help keep the center of private space flight in Mojave was shelved at least temporarily Monday.
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However, supporters are trying a different tack, asking Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to put money for the loan to the Mojave Spaceport in the revised state budget proposal he will release later this month.
Mojave was the site of the first privately financed flight into space in June 2004, when a spacecraft built by a local firm, Scaled Composites, founded by aerospace pioneer Burt Rutan, flew to the edge of the atmosphere.
A bill by State Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, to appropriate money for the loan was shuffled aside by the Senate Appropriations Committee Monday, along with nearly all other bills that have significant price tags.
They will be reconsidered next month when lawmakers have a better idea of how much money is available for unbudgeted expenses.
Ashburn said he is not disappointed.
"We're making progress; we're moving forward with the bill," Ashburn said. "The point is that if we're going to keep private space flight in California, at the Mojave Airport, financing is going to be needed to build the hangar facility so private space flight companies will have adequate room."
Stuart Witt, manager of the airport and the spaceport, said other states are preparing to compete aggressively for private space flight business.
Earlier this year, New Mexico announced a deal with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic to base Virgin's spaceport in that state. Virgin Galactic hopes to take tourists into space for about $200,000 a ticket.
But Witt said the Mojave facility can still be a vital center for private space flight if it can get the financing to build attractive facilities.
Ashburn said he is not depending entirely on the Legislature for the funding. He said he wrote a letter to the governor Monday asking for the funds from the state budget. There was no immediate response from the governor's office.
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SpaceShipOne, an odd-looking rocket ship, was built by Burt Rutan’s company, Scaled Composites, largely with financing from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.
• June 21, 2004: SpaceShipOne becomes the first privately built craft to make a manned flight into space.
• Oct. 4, 2004: SpaceShipOne wins the Ansari X-Prize by making two manned flights into space within two weeks.
• July 2005: Rutan and Allen sign an agreement with Virgin Galactic, a new company formed by Virgin Airlines founder Richard Branson, to take paying customers into space by 2007.
• In 2006, New Mexico officials announce a partnership to try to bring Virgin Galactic’s space launches to that state.