The state of Michigan isn’t pursuing a spaceport, unlike next-door neaighbor Wisconsin (which may or may not be serious about a spaceport), but an editorial Friday in the Bay City Times suggests that the state should take the idea seriously. Why? Jobs and money, of course: “Don’t just think out of the box in trying to save, rebuild or reshape the state’s economy. Think out of this world.” (The editorial cites an economic impact report for the New Mexico spaceport, which in the interests of full disclosure I should note was performed for the state by my employer.) The Times even has scouted out a location for the facility: “an enormous, old bomber base with humongous runways up in Oscoda”, on the shores of Lake Huron. Beyond this editorial, however, there’s no sign the state is considering the idea of a spaceport.

The AP has a review article on the “unprecedented rush to build snazzy commercial spaceports”, with a particular focus on efforts in New Mexico and Oklahoma. There’s not much new here, although the article thoughtfully includes a comparison to the last spaceport boom in the 1990s (some of the proposed spaceports listed on the map included with the article can trace their heritages back to that previous VentureStar-triggered boom). Derek Webber—a former colleague of mine—suggests that diversification can help cushion the blow of any future spaceport bust: “You’ve got to do your homework because not all states will succeed.”

Speaking of spaceports, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel follows up its earlier article about a proposed Sheboygan spaceport with an editorial that argues that the spaceport concept should be taken seriously. While acknowledging a number of issues that a spaceport there would have to face—not the least of which is the brutal winter weather—the editors retain some optimism about this effort. “The important thing is not to surrender to the mentality - one that is too prevalent in these parts - that automatically smothers fresh ideas and daring projects.”

In an essay in this week’s issue of The Space Review, Bob Clarebrough called the 2004 flights of SpaceShipOne a “Kitty Hark moment”: “that instant when the impossible becomes a reality.” Clarebrough mentions this because suborbital passenger spaceflight has not yet won broad acceptance, pointing to some cynical commentary in both the American and British press in the post-SS1 era. That, he argues, is akin to the lack of acceptance of aviation after the Wright Brothers’ flight, all the way until Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight. Clarebrough advises people to ignore the naysayers and focus on the future: “Every plane, rocket, and spaceship lifts off with a cargo of dreams. We may not know precisely how long it will take for those dreams to be fully realized, but let’s cut the pioneers some slack.”

Also in this week’s issue of The Space Review, Taylor Dinerman examines the number of commercial spaceports that have been proposed or are under development. Much of his essay is a contract between New Mexico, which is committing over $100 million to build a spaceport, and California, which has largely ignored space tourism and related markets, despite the pioneering role played by Mojave Airport. Why are the two states going in opposite directions?

…possibly because the New Mexico state government is not as politically polarized as California’s. Also, New Mexico is a poorer state and is ready to make a real effort to capitalize on every single one of its assets. California has an abundance of resources and if it ends up losing the space tourism industry to New Mexico it will be just one of many that it has lost in the last twenty years.

An essay in The Business newspaper in the UK by Madsen Pirie, president of the Adam Smith Institute, examines the state of the nascent space tourism industry. Pirie is surprised, albeit pleasantly, by what he sees: “What is interesting is the innovative approach which private enterprise has taken. Instead of having a committee approve a chosen operational approach, the private entrepreneurs are competing with a variety of different ways of doing it.” Now, why should that be surprising?

For those of you who have wondered in from The Space Review or other locales, welcome to my new blog. Personal Spaceflight is devoted to the emerging space tourism industry (the blog takes its name from one of the alternative terms put forward for “space tourism”, although none seem to have the cachet of the original term.)

Why space tourism? In recent years it’s become clear that space tourism is possibly the biggest—if not the only—growth market for the space industry in general in the near to mid term. Satellite launches for conventional markets, government and commercial, have been flat in recent years, and limited demand and high launch prices have created a vicious circle. Space tourism is perhaps the best opportunity to break that cycle, with a large market of willing customers (or “self-loading carbon-based payloads”, as Peter Diamandis has called them) sufficient to warrant the development of new vehicles that can access space at far lower costs—with potential applications beyond just ferrying passengers.

Space tourism has received growing attention in recent years, thanks to the Ansari X Prize and the flights of SpaceShipOne, and more recently with the activities of Virgin Galactic, Rocketplane Ltd., Space Adventures, and other companies seeking a share of the market. I’ve been following space tourism for several years, from back in the late 1990s when it suffered from the “snicker factor”: the inevitable giggle that would come from the audience of a space industry event when someone mentioned it with a straight face. That snicker factor is largely (but not entirely) gone, thanks in part to the very real accomplishments of the industry to date as well as the considerable investment being made by the likes of Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, and Paul Allen.

Of course, space tourism has its share of hype, dubious ventures, and unrealistic expectations. With Personal Spaceflight I hope to share both big news and little tidbits about the industry, good and bad, to provide a perspective on the state of the industry. This is certainly not the only blog that is devoted in part or in total to space tourism; I’m just adding my own voice to the cacophony. I hope to avoid unwarranted boosterism, but also extreme negativity: cautious optimism, with a mild dose of skepticism, is what I’m aiming for here. Please email me your comments, suggestions, questions, etc. about this blog. Let’s see just how vital space tourism is to the future of the space industry and spaceflight in general.