A S’pore spaceport?

A S’pore spaceport?

 

Second firm looking at S’pore as space tourism base while first hits funds snag

 

Thursday • February 21, 2008

 

Leong Wee Keat

weekeat@…

 

THE latest plot sounds familiar but the suspense has not abated: Will space tourism take off here or be consigned to the realm of pure science fiction?

 

Virgin Galactic — the space tourism arm of British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Group — is looking at Singapore as a possible base for its commercial spacecraft within the next five years.

 

At a global space conference at the Singapore Airshow yesterday, Virgin Galatic’s chief operating officer Alex Tai said the company hopes to expand its business after its first venture in the United States lifts off in 2011.

 

If there is a sense of deja vu about all this, it is because another space tourism company, Space Adventures, had grandly announced in February 2006 its plans to build spaceports in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Singapore at the cost of US$265 million ($404 million) and US$130 million, respectively.

 

But Space Adventures’ plans here have hit a snag: It has only managed to raise just over half the required investment, said president and chief executive Eric Anderson. He aims to raise the funds by the year’s end and, if the money does not materialise, the firm could move on to other Asian countries.

 

Space Adventures has been speaking to government agencies here and while they have been “supportive”, Mr Anderson said, his efforts in the UAE were more fruitful. The spaceport got clearance from the UAE’s rulers and Department of Civil Aviation. Crown Prince Sheikh Saud Saqr Al Qasimi of Ras Al Khaimah, where the spaceport is likely to be based, also pledged US$30 million.

 

It was reported last September that aviation authorities here had not given the project the green light. Mr Anderson said it was also a lot more difficult convincing a local consortium of companies to put up the money.

 

Earlier yesterday, Minister of State for Trade and Industry S Iswaran told reporters that plans to build a spaceport here were a private initiative. While welcoming new players to tourism, he said the ultimate take-off test for space tourism was commercial viability.

 

He added: “Whether it is commercial space ventures or adapting these technologies for terrestrial applications, those are areas Singapore can be meaningfully involved in.”

 

Mr Tai said the space tourism industry is looking for “that Netscape moment”, when someone makes a lot of money, before other investors will decide they, too, “want to make an awful amount of cash”.

 

Mr Joerg Kreisel, who runs a consultancy specialising in space ventures and equity finance, told Today a spaceport endeavour was “a very complex commercial undertaking. It is not just an infrastructure which somebody rents and everyone is happy. It goes all the way to regulatory, the financing, the share in upsides and legal liabilities if an accident happens”.

 

For Virgin Galactic, plans to build its first spaceport in New Mexico, America had to be put to a local vote, said Mr Tai. More than 200 prospective passengers from 30 countries have booked seats with the company, shelling out US$200,000 apiece. Rocketed into sub-orbital space, passengers would get about five minutes of zero-gravity time — and an unparalleled view — before gliding back to Earth.

 

With the growing number of millionaires in the Asia Pacific, Mr Tai said Singapore was an “excellent place” to base the company’s product and it could partner Space Adventures or the Singapore Government to do so.

 

Source: Today Newspaper