Talk:Spaceport

Early discussions
Needs to be rewritten. Parts of the Kennedy Space Center are open to the public and a major tourist attraction. Parts of it are off limits, but so are parts of airports.


 * At the current state of the art, a spaceport is a heavily secured government facility not open to the general public. Observation of space launches is only permitted from specific areas under heavy security.  This is to prevent sabotage and terrorism.

--User:Roadrunner

This isn't true as far as I know.


 * Military spaceports are often hardened against nuclear warfare with buried silos supplementing exposed launch facilities.

Vandenberg and Canaveral don't have siloed launch sites, neither do the Russian or Chinese spaceport.

ICBM's are siloed, but those aren't for space launches.

-- User:Roadrunner


 * Strictly true, but if Orbital starts using Peacekeepers for satellite launches, then it will not be. &mdash;Joseph/N328KF (Talk) 14:36, 2005 Feb 1 (UTC)

Is it ok to list places that call themselves spaceports but haven't actually had a launch to space yet? I added the Oklahoma Spaceport. It was licensed by the FFA in 2001. Armadillo Aerospace has done some test flights there.

Complete(?) list of rockets launch sites, see rocket launch site

Palmachim?
Would it be proper to include Palmachim here? It is confirmed by Israel that it is used for launching orbital satellites.--Amir E. Aharoni 07:56, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

User:Mrld
Amire80 is right leave Palmachim on the list. They do launch satellites from the air force base there. User:Mrld

needs a proper table
AlbertCahalan 02:24, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
 * name
 * country
 * altitude
 * latitude
 * largest vehicles that can be launched
 * date of next planned launch
 * date of most recent launch


 * This list of table columns looks good to me. I would substitute "largest vehicle launched" for "that can be launched", as one is more open to interpretation (and thus disagreement ;-) than the other. (Sdsds - Talk) 04:37, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Need better image
Currently the article uses an image of Bumper 8 taking off from Cape Canaveral. The trouble with this is that Bumper 8 was not a spaceflight. (It was an atmospheric rocket mission.) We could instead use one of the fine images of a spaceflight launch like the one shown at right. But does anyone have thoughts on where to find an image that shows a spaceport? Is there a modern photo that shows both LC-39 and the shuttle landing facility, hopefully with plenty of missile row in the background? (sdsds - talk) 01:44, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Shorter names in Spaceport template

 * Regarding the template Spaceport used on this page, please join the discussion at Template talk:Spaceport.
 * (sdsds - talk) 23:20, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Definition
Can the article mention that it is a port for launching or receiving spaceships ? At the moment, only the launching is discussed; receiving spaceships is done at places as the International space station. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.245.88.169 (talk) 16:19, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Done/216Kleopatra (talk) 10:45, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

Future spaceports
Here's a BBC link to a piece on the proposed spaceport in Scotland. Scotland battles Sweden to get European spaceport, BBC News, 14 Feb 2011.


 * And here is an recent update on Spaceport Sweden. Cheers.  N2e (talk) 13:53, 16 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Here is a link from the Houston Chronicle that gives a more complete list of the ten (10) proposed new spaceports in the U.S.: City aviation director envisions spaceport at Ellington, 15 Apr 2012. Key grafs:  In addition to the airport director's question of whether spending "$48 million to $122 million to make Ellington one of the nation's first spaceports", "A spaceport already is operating in California's Mojave Desert, and a taxpayer-financed $200 million spaceport is under construction in New Mexico [editors note:  Spaceport America has already flown multiple unmanned suborbital rockets to space]. The Federal Aviation Administration has issued licenses for spaceports in Florida, Oklahoma, Alaska and Virginia.  Others have been proposed in Alabama, Colorado, Hawaii, Indiana, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming (or this?).  Last week, a California company said it is considering a site in the Brownsville[, Texas] area for rocket launches."   This is the first mainline press outfit that has sourced such a large list:  two existing spaceports plus nine in various states of proposal, some which have received specific legislative authority from State legislators for limited-liability or State-provided subsidies.  N2e (talk) 02:25, 23 April 2012 (UTC)


 * Another proposal of a US spaceport: Spaceport Colorado, with a State limited liability law in place, but not yet really funded in any way; source is at the link.  Cheers.  N2e (talk) 20:00, 24 May 2012 (UTC)

US Spaceport overview
A well-researched article has just been published in the space press that does a very thorough overview of the 18 space launch locations in the U.S., and of the numerous (ten) proposed spaceports: "Additional spaceports and launch sites are now under consideration or active development in ten locations in five states and Puerto Rico. Four of the launch locations are in Texas, two in Florida, and one each in Colorado, Georgia, Hawaii and Puerto Rico." Spaceports, Everywhere a Spaceport (But Very Little to Launch), Parabolic Arc, 12 Feb 2013. — Cheers. N2e (talk) 14:10, 13 February 2013 (UTC)

Mess and Circular ?
On 2012 December 21 editor N2e inserted three "citation needed" requests in the first table. N2e supported these with two statements in the editing comment: 1) wikipedia does not allow circular references. My response is that the references to detailed wikipedia articles on individual launchers or spacecraft certainly do not consitute circular references since the detailed information contained in those articles can't be derived from the much more general article Spaceport. 2) "... this table is a mess and is missing vast numbers of launches from some facilities". My first response to this is that N2e is wellcome to contribute the vast number of missing launches. Secondly, in my oppinion the three "citation needed" requests have created a mess in the table. Why single out these three? If better references are needed then surely those are required for every single row of the table. Thus, in that case I suggest inserting an additional column in the table for those references, in a similar way to the last column of the second table. 2013 April 24/216Kleopatra (talk) 12:48, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

One way of making the first table less messy is to separate the orbital human flights from the suborbital human flights. Unfortunately, that would destroy the current chronology for Cape Caneveral, which has both sub-orbital and orbital human flights. Another way would be to make a strict chronological ordering between all the spaceports, independently of whether the flights were orbital or not. 216Kleopatra (talk) 13:51, 24 April 2013 (UTC)

Local view
"The nature of the local view from 100 km (62 mi) altitude is also a factor to consider." As a factor in siting of spaceports, this may be true for all I know, but why? It needs to be explained. And is there a reference for this statement. cheers Geopersona (talk) 06:24, 29 July 2017 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 7 external links on Spaceport. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20031031090517/http://astronautix.com/sites/capveral.htm to http://www.astronautix.com/sites/capveral.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071104074853/http://www.astronautix.com/sites/kapinyar.htm to http://www.astronautix.com/sites/kapinyar.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20071229175958/http://www.astronautix.com/sites/plesetsk.htm to http://www.astronautix.com/sites/plesetsk.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20050129090651/http://www.astronautix.com/sites/xichang.htm to http://www.astronautix.com/sites/xichang.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20132216225700/http://www.astronautix.com/sites/svoodniy.htm to http://www.astronautix.com/sites/svoodniy.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090707054949/http://www.astronautix.com/sites/kodiak.htm to http://www.astronautix.com/sites/kodiak.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080618045913/http://www.astronautix.com/sites/domvskiy.htm to http://www.astronautix.com/sites/domvskiy.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 08:44, 11 November 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 external links on Spaceport. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20132200100900/http://www.astronautix.com/sites/baikonur.htm to http://www.astronautix.com/sites/baikonur.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20132200175100/http://www.astronautix.com/sites/vannberg.htm to http://www.astronautix.com/sites/vannberg.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20132210140400/http://www.astronautix.com/sites/hamguira.htm to http://www.astronautix.com/sites/hamguira.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20170127061311/http://www.astronautix.com/sites/taiyuan.htm to http://www.astronautix.com/sites/taiyuan.htm
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20130204012038/http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-01/30/c_132138953.htm to http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-01/30/c_132138953.htm
 * Added tag to http://www.dailycardinal.com/news/spaceport-could-be-in-the-stars-for-sheboygan.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 15:18, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

JZRO
Would Jezero crater (Mars) qualify to be included under "beyond earth" as it was the launchsite of Ingenuity? Or would it not qualify since it's technically an airport? vghfr 23:20, 27 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Yes, your second interpretation seems best, as Ingenuity was a rotary-wing aircraft, albeit operating in the atmosphere of a planet other than Earth. That it was delivered to Mars by a spacecraft is notable but not the essential criterion to determine whether Jezero can be deemed a spaceport. (sdsds - talk) 02:34, 28 January 2024 (UTC)