Astroblog: A Spaceport for Woomera

Monday, August 21, 2006

A Spaceport for Woomera

Dropping our international visitor at the interstate train terminal, we were greeted with banner headlines proclaiming NASA was going to launch supplies to the International Space Station from Woomera. The NASA decision was also featured on the ABC radio news as I drove back. As I written before, I have always been fascinated by the Woomera Space facility. It fueled my dreams of Space when I was a kid, so see this news excited me, maybe my kids could have a carree in Space Science. The reality is not quite so rosy, the story is that NASA has contracted two private comanies to develop launch vehicles. At the end of the two years or so, NASA may not choose either of the two companies competeing to launch material at all. One of them, Kistler, as been "setting up" launch facilities since 1998, so I am less rosy about the chances of successful launching in a two year time span.

Ah well, one can but dream.

# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 9:58 am

Comments:

I got all excited there for a minute Ian.

# posted by

Anonymous : 1:14 am

I was excited for about two hours, until I could read the full articles and sleuth a bit on Kistler. However, it's a non-zero probability that it will occur, so while I won't hold my breat, I will be pleasantly surprised if we can watch Woomera launches the way people watch shuttle launches.

# posted by