One Step at a Time......
May. 25th, 2004 10:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
patgundThis is actually quite cool.....
Spaceport to Rise in California's Mojave Desert
"A desert airdrome in Mojave, California is on the final glide path to getting government approval for becoming an inland gateway to space.
The Federal Aviation Administration's Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST) is expected next month to certify that the Mojave Airport Civilian Flight Test Center as a non-federal spaceport to handle horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft"
Mind you, my Libertarian side is grumpy about needing governmental approval and certification for such, but so it goes. This one section caught my eye though:
"Running a spaceport also means keeping a watchful eye out for Gopherus agassizii. For those of you still living in your shell, that’s the desert tortoise, found in the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts of southern California. This tortoise was listed as threatened under the California state Endangered Species Act in 1989.
"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," Witt said."
Seems to me a tortoise is just as squished if a jet lands on it as if a rocket lands on it.
Spaceport to Rise in California's Mojave Desert
"A desert airdrome in Mojave, California is on the final glide path to getting government approval for becoming an inland gateway to space.
The Federal Aviation Administration's Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation (FAA/AST) is expected next month to certify that the Mojave Airport Civilian Flight Test Center as a non-federal spaceport to handle horizontal launches of reusable spacecraft"
Mind you, my Libertarian side is grumpy about needing governmental approval and certification for such, but so it goes. This one section caught my eye though:
"Running a spaceport also means keeping a watchful eye out for Gopherus agassizii. For those of you still living in your shell, that’s the desert tortoise, found in the Mojave and Sonoran Deserts of southern California. This tortoise was listed as threatened under the California state Endangered Species Act in 1989.
"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," Witt said."
Seems to me a tortoise is just as squished if a jet lands on it as if a rocket lands on it.
