For two legislators, their proudest moment in the 2009 legislative session came with passage of a bill giving the Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism half a million dollars to buy a spaceport license from the Federal Aviation Administration. Half is to come from the state’s Airport Revenue Fund, the rest is to be drawn from the Tourism Special Fund.
Sen. Will Espero told the Honolulu Weekly that passage of the measure, House Bill 994, “was the most important economic development issue of this session.” Rep. Gene Ward told the Weekly that the bill provided “the single biggest boost to our future economy… Hawai`i will no longer be the same because of this bill.” So enthusiastic was Ward, in fact, that he posted his thoughts on the subject in a video available on YouTube.
The measure was supported by the Office of Aerospace Development, an arm of DBEDT. OAD’s director, Jim Crisafulli, has described the scenario he envisions for space tourism in Hawai`i. Tourists from, say, Hokkaido will take a hybrid business plane (powered on takeoff and landing like any other, but capable of getting to suborbital space through the use of rockets once the plane is well above the Earth). The flight to Honolulu will take less than an hour, he says. Once in Honolulu, the tourists will train for a week at Kalaeloa, preparing for their weightless ride. “Then they’ll be flown to the Kona airport, stay overnight one night, and then on the return, they will fly up to 62 miles and have this space experience, roughly about 4 minutes of which will actually be weightless,” Crisafulli says. (Crisafulli’s description of the way the space-tourist industry would work can also be found on YouTube, where he is interviewed by Gene Ward in “A Word with Ward,” a talk-show formatted video.)
According to Crisafulli, no modifications will be needed to Hawai`i airports to accommodate the space travelers. “The launch facility is just a commercial airport,” he says. Because of this and the fact that most Hawai`i airports are near the ocean, thus reducing safety considerations, Hawai`i can more easily obtain a license from the FAA, Crisafulli says, using the programmatic environmental impact statement the agency prepared for sub-orbital commercial flights.
Just how attractive is the space-tourism scenario?
In his testimony on the bill, DBEDT director Ted Liu stated that space tourism in Hawai`i could generate “approximately $200 million in annual gross revenues from user fees.” That, he said, was based on the business projections of Rocketplane Global, “one of several companies that have approached our state to request permission to launch these types of vehicles from Hawai`i as early as 2011.” Rocketplane Global had also proposed developing a “terrestrial space-themed education and training center” at Kalaeloa, Liu said.
No one mentioned just how expensive the “space experience,” as Crisafulli described it, would be. But Virgin Galactic is selling rides on its spaceplane for $100,000 a pop. Rocketplane Global is advertising rides at the truly stratospheric rate of $250,000 per passenger.
In further support of the aerospace industry, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 537, establishing an Aerospace Advisory Committee. The 16 members are to “advise and assist the legislature and state agencies in monitoring, assessing, and promoting aerospace development statewide.”
Six members are to come from the aerospace industry (three representing state aerospace interests, the other three representing the larger industry). One member is to be an investment banker. Each of the economic development boards of the four counties is given a seat, as is the state Department of Education. The University of Hawai`i system has three seats (one from the Manoa campus, one from the Hilo campus, and another one representing the statewide community college system). The last seat will be occupied by the chairman, “who shall have experience, knowledge, and expertise in space-related activities and development in the global and state aerospace industry.” DBEDT is to provide administrative support.
‘One of the Dreams of my Childhood…’
What follows is a partial transcription of remarks made by Rep. Gene Ward in a YouTube video about Hawai`i space tourism.
Today is April 30, 2009. And today is a historic day. Hawai`i will never be the same after passage of House Bill 994. House Bill 994 creates Hawai`i as a spaceport. It has immense implications for the future of tourism.
We’re already the center of normal tourism, where people come and go, but now the tourism we’re talking about is space related. Number 1, it’s space travel with weightlessness that we will have here in a matter of years, I would say probably two or three years at the most.… A tourist’s dream – one of the dreams of my childhood, in fact. …
But the more exciting thing for tourism, in addition to the weightlessness, is the ability for rocket planes to take off normally and land normally, but again after they get up two miles, they shoot their rocket engine and then they trajectory, as in a rocket plane, above the earth’s atmosphere, and then re-enter, for example, from Hawai`i to Hokkaido, that’s Japan, just north of Tokyo, forty-five minutes. Honolulu International, Sapporo, Hokkaido – forty-five minutes. With passage of this bill, it’s not only for the fun for the tourists, but it’s for the economic growth of this state….
Hawai`i will never be the same for people’s motivation to come here or, when they come and go, down the line in a number of years, when we actually have rocket launches. Normal takeoff and landing, so there’s no environmental difficulties. But they’re going to be able to go through, above the earth, and then back into the atmosphere, at a tremendous saving of time and, hopefully, money, even though right now it’s still experimental.…
For More Information
Ward’s video on HB 944 may be found at: [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3vU64RCghs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3vU64RCghs[/url]
The video in which Crisafulli describes the space-tourism scenario may be found at:
[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwTtxcxRW8g&feature=channel_page]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwTtxcxRW8g&feature=channel_page[/url]
Volume 20, Number 1 July 2009
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