| Sir Richard Branson was looking for a city to launch | | | | regularly scheduled space launches will be as routine |
| Virgin Galactic. It would have been cool to be the | | | | as boarding a plane and flying to say, Albuequrque |
| first city in the world to have the first spaceport to | | | | (which I hear is in New Mexico-- where ever that is). |
| send passengers into space on a regularyly scheduled | | | | Still, if that is part of the criteria of landing the first |
| basis. Since he has a home in Miami, I thought maybe | | | | spaceport, Miami could have met that requirement. It |
| that city had a chance. Florida, afterall, is where | | | | has the Atlantic to the east and the Everglades to |
| science fiction first launched a man to the moon in | | | | the west. In fact, it even has a single runway already |
| Jules Verne's "From The Earth To The Moon" (1865). | | | | waiting for it out there in the swamp. It was the only |
| Verne figured the best and safest spot on the planet | | | | thing built during the seventies when Miami was |
| was Tampa. That's because Miami was still only a | | | | constructing a "Jetport" to relieve air traffic at MIA. |
| word in Miccosukee that meant "that place," a trading | | | | That plan got shot down by environmentalists but |
| post at the mouth of a river. | | | | the runway has been used ever since for |
| Well, Miami could have become "that place" for | | | | emergencies and pilot training. |
| regularly scheduled flights into space out of Miami | | | | Another thing that would have made basing Virgin |
| International Airport if city, county, and state reps | | | | Galactic in Miami a success would have been the |
| had made an effort to persuade Sir Richard to launch | | | | synergy developed from the megayacht marina that |
| his new enterprise there. Unlike the rocket launches | | | | will be built in downtown Miami. Think about it. At |
| at Cape Canaveral-- which ironically are directly | | | | $200,000.00 a pop, you and I probably won't be able |
| opposite Verne's Tampa launch site-- Virgin Galactic | | | | to afford these flights, but the people who can also |
| will take off and land on an airport runway. Although | | | | can afford megayachts (100-feet and longer). A |
| the flights are sub-orbital, it's still space, man. Instead, | | | | Miami spaceport would have attracted them to Miami |
| the state of New Mexico trumped all the major | | | | where they could catch a rocket into space and |
| airports by providing 27-square-miles of state owned | | | | return in time to board their yachts to watch the sun |
| scrub, cactus, and desert and $200 million to build the | | | | set behind the new towers fronting Biscayne |
| world's first spaceport. Called Spaceport America, | | | | Boulevard. |
| Virgin Galactic considered the site "ideal" because, | | | | Going into space from New Mexico? First tell me |
| among other factors, it has "low population density." | | | | where it is and then how many mules it will take to |
| Now, I don't know about you, but that's not | | | | get me and my luggage to the launch pad. |
| something I would consider being important if | | | | |