The Camden spaceport legislation is scheduled to be signed into law by Gov. Nathan Deal, and this milestone is the result a lot of hard work and educational efforts by a team led by Camden County manager Steve Howard. For several years, Howard and sympathetic lawmakers and business leaders have urged that Georgia get serious about the establishing and growing a space industry– just as a few other states have done.
When spaceport Camden is licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration (currently in the Environmental Impact Study phase) it will be a crown jewel for the Peach State. A planned Camden spaceport site has even been described by at least two prominent launch companies as the best potential spaceport site in the country. As it was explained to this writer, that is because launch companies can launch from west to east over water. The earth’s rotation is from west to east so launching west to east requires less energy to put a given pound of satellite payload into orbit.
In fact, launching west to east over water is difficult to do from competing spaceports located in Colorado, New Mexico and Texas. So, as Howard explains it, the cards are truly stacked in Georgia’s favor when it comes to taking advantage of the fast-growing space transportation industry.
Like the film industry, Georgia can now play catch up with this legislation and thus secure more market share. As Bob Scaringe, a space industry consultant and president of Marietta-based AVG Communications, says: “If you like what the film industry did for Georgia, you are going to love what the space industry will do — especially since the global space industry is a whopping five times the size of the global film industry.
Howard adds: “Georgia will not only be the best state to do business, but the best state to go to space.”
