I think they were thinking airplane launched rockets would work in Oscoda
because the airforce base there has contaminants in the ground that would
likely make setting up shop easier from a paper work standpoint.
The UP site is said to be north of Marquette. K. I. Sawyer is south of
Marquette and has been fully decommissioned and purchased by local indians
and ex-base employees so they'd be building a new facility.
Both these sites have the same problem as launching dog-leg southern
trajectories from the cape. They are going to be going over populated
areas. Not much up there but those little villages near the north shore of
Lake Superior still count don't they?
Does anyone on this list know if legal framework of any kind exists for the
operation of rockets over populated areas? Turn off the second stage then
restart or optimise the first stage so the second stage only starts after
the ground track of the parabolic trajectory is past the villages or only
launch in winter when no one's there.
The guy in the interview seems to think that the big three auto companies
in Detroit would be using Michigan launch locations just out of loyalty. If
space X and other wifi from orbit networks make no attempt to price gouge
data plans for Detroit made cars, his business senergey plan falls apart.
On Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 4:00 PM Rand Simberg <simberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
For high inclination, right? I thought that they'd been looking at Oscoda.
AFAIK, Toronto and Ottawa are OK with this. Not much to drop anything on up
there except wolves and moose.
On 7/30/20 12:54 PM, Rick Wills wrote:
Interesting news from up north.
Just saw this. Last week, Michigan announced the selection of a location
on Lake Superior for vertical launches. The article is at
https://www.freep.com/story/money/cars/2020/07/23/michigan-rocket-launch-site-marquette/5493837002/.
The location was identified as being near Marquette, MI on the north side
of the Upper Peninsula. The old Air Force base, K. I. Sawyer is near
there.
I attended the Michigan Space Summit last year; these ideas were discussed
in detail. I recommended they get in touch with Spaceport America for some
advice and direction; no sense in relearning all the lessons they
discovered. There is another event like the Space Summit called the North
American Space Summit in late August in Traverse City, MI. The site is at
https://www.thenass.org/. The list of speakers and agenda up on their
website. I’m attending.
I may try to fly my liquid there. Only 12 hours to Michigan’s Upper
Peninsula instead of 3 days to the western US.
Rick Wills