Mojave Spaceport

“On Saturday, engineers were treated like rock stars in St. Louis. The winners in latest space race, Mojave Aerospace Ventures, which is headed by aviation pioneer Burt Rutan, accepted the $10 million Ansari Prize at the St. Louis Science Center this past Saturday.”

“The company accepted the prize for sending astronauts Mike Melvill and Brian Binnie into space twice in a week – Sept. 29 and Oct. 4 – aboard SpaceShipOne, a privately designed rocket ship.” -Source: St. Louis Telegraph

This is about history, since it was at St. Louis where Charles Lindberg first got the backing for the first successful transatlantic flight.

This is also about the future. Today is just like it was when people were first exploring the New World, for above us all is the place outside of our ‘cradle,’ this good earth.

People who see space for themselves are deeply moved. Once they are there, they understand our future, and the need to open the door to space for everyone.

This tentative first step by ordinary people into space is just the beginning. Soon there will be other prizes for reaching orbit, and for placing a base there. The prizes are going to be much bigger too, as will the feats and the successes to come.

In Mojave California, Bert’s company has gotten hundreds of resumes, not just from engineers, but from common people, such as teachers and businessmen. People who want to sweep the floors, or anything, just to be a part of what is happening out here.

A spaceport! Think of it!

A few decades from now, it will be commonplace for Man to embark into space from places like Mojave. This is as it should be. Eventually we must not only leave our cradle, but we must use the riches and the fantastic resources we find out there to enrich, preserve and rebuild our world.

Surely some will laugh at this. For back in Lindberg’s day, who could have understood that in a few years people would routinely travel across the Atlantic in airplanes? Who would have believed back then in the enormous wealth and technological advances that such travel would bring everyone in the world? Or who could have foreseen how the world would shrink and change forever, because of that first flight?

Today, out here in Mojave, it is no different. Life goes on. History continues to happen in every walk and avenue of life, and much of it is not pretty. But for a few of us, having a spaceport makes our future somewhat exciting, and gives all of us a bit of hope about what kind of bright future we all might have.