 From the Dept. of Are You Sure You Thought This Thing Through?
A day after Space Adventures announced it was in a venture to develop rocket ships for suborbital flights, the company said Friday it plans to build a $265 million spaceport in the United Arab Emirates. | And surely the Emiris would NEVER nationalize anything as trivial as a spaceport, yes? |
The commercial spaceport would be based in Mos Eisely Ras Al-Khaimah near the southern end of the Persian Gulf, and the UAE government has made an initial investment of $30 million, the Arlington, Va.-based company said in a statement. | Arlington, VA, where less than five years ago a civilian aircraft was commandeered and deliberately driven into the Pentagon. How soon we forget. |
The spaceport announcement comes on the heels of Space Adventures' new partnership with an investment firm founded by major sponsors of the Ansari X Prize to develop rocket ships for suborbital flights. The agreement between Space Adventures and the Texas-based venture capital firm Prodea would help finance suborbital vehicles being designed and built by the Russian aerospace firm Myasishchev Design Bureau. | And here's Russia in the mix. I'm feeling better and better about this. Not. |
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