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U.S. company plans $265 million spaceport in UAE
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.

Posted by: Seafarious 2006-02-19
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=143066