By Chris Forrester
A Las Vegas real estate developer wants to build a spaceport on 240 acres of near-desert scrub in Clark County, Nevada. The site is midway between Vegas and Pahrump, Nevada. Pahrump was once notorious as the base for a couple of brothels.
Rob Lauer, the developer, is seeking to raise $310 million (284.4 million euros) to build a launch pad, a runway for spaceplanes, a control tower and a flight-training school. Also in the plan is a 200 room hotel + casino.
“I own the land, bought it in November, and have been working on a concept for about a year,” Lauer said in an interview with local press. “This is not something that’s going to happen overnight.”
Lauer added that there were now 37 separate companies planning space aircraft that would need runway and/or launch facilities. He also said that space tourism and even future visits to orbiting hotels were in his sights, and that Las Vegas was the perfect location.
Lauer has assembled an impressive roster of experts to his team, including retired Brigadier Gen. Robert Novotny, a former commander of the 57th Wing at Nellis Air Force Base; Dave Ruppel, a former director of the Colorado Air and Space Port who successfully received a license and helped convert Front Range Airport in Watkins, Colorado, to a spaceport; retired Col. Cameron Dadgar, an F-16 pilot who commanded the Nevada Test Range as an aeronautical engineer; Ken MacDonald, an environmental compliance officer for endangered species for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; Ron Kelly, a pilot for 50 years who owns an FAA-certified flight simulator company who trains airline pilots; and George Garcia, a Clark County entitlements, planning and zoning expert.
“We project 15 flights a month to a space hotel with six passengers and two crew,” the company said in an online prospectus. “Charging $125,000 per passenger generating gross revenue of $750,000 per flight, that adds up to $135 million per year in gross revenues.”
