Spaceport Sweden PR — Spaceport Sweden has collaborated with the ICEHOTEL, Kiruna Airport and Scandinavian Airlink to launch an exclusive space tourism experience that will allow clients to get an even closer look at the magical and mythical northern lights.
The road to Spaceport America is now paved only with red dirt. Virgin Galactic and New Mexico hope it will soon be paved in gold. (Photo Credit: Lucinda Weisbach)
Space industry arrives in New Mexico Las Cruces Bulletin
A model for making the $198 million Spaceport America 45 miles north of Las Cruces a tourist destination can be found in the contingency from Spaceport Sweden. Although its spaceport launch facilities was developed from an existing operation, Sweden emphasizes other attractions than just launches, such as reindeer rides, the Northern Lights and a stay in a hotel made of ice.
There’s some fascinating news out of Sweden that points to a possible major delay in Virgin Galactic’s long-planned suborbital tourism flights:
Short tourist flights into space are expected to begin launching from northern Sweden in 2012, one of the companies involved in the project said Wednesday.
“We expect that the first tourist flights leaving from the United States will start around 2011 and that Kiruna (in northern Sweden) will be next about a year later, in 2012,” Spacesport Sweden spokeswoman Johanna Bergstroem-Roos told AFP.
Today in Gothenburg Virgin Galactic announced the names of the five travel companies who will train to become “Accredited Space Agents†(ASAs)– the first agents in the region allowed to reserve seats aboard Virgin Galactic’s suborbital space flights.
Officials from the New Mexico Spaceport Authority (NMSA) have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Spaceport Sweden to align with Spaceport America as ‘Sister Spaceports’. Working in collaboration, the two spaceports will increase global cooperation in the commercial space industry, promote cultural understanding and stimulate local economic development, tourism and education.