British entrepreneur Richard Branson is reported to be considering sites in both South Australia and Victoria to act as spaceports for his new space tourism business.
Virgin Galactic is reported to be loking at sites in South Australia and Victoria for its space tourism business. Photo: Sir Richard Branson. Credit: NASA
Branson's new venture Virgin Galactic is already building the world's first commercial spaceport in the US state of New Mexico with voyages from that site expected to start within two years. Branson's company is looking for additional sites to complement New Mexico and has labelled South Australia and Victoria as "ideal."
"We do have plans to launch from venues worldwide and Australia is in our long-term plans," said Virgin Galactic's astronaut sales head Carolyn Wincer to News Ltd.
"South Australia and Victoria would be good places to launch from."
She added that sites in South Australia under consideration were in the east and north-central regions of the state with the region's consistent climate, clear airspace and no-fly-zone areas making it an ideal location for construction of the spaceport.
Wincer said that Victoria was also under consideration because "...Melbourne is so well connected, which is very important."
South Australian Tourism Commission chief executive Andrew McEvoy says the proposed construction of the spaceport in his state would be highly beneficial in an economic sense.
"As in true Virgin style, they tend to put it out there to see who's interested but they're great to work with so we'll be in touch with them this week to see how serious they are," he said. "If they're all serious we'd love to show them some sites and see if the Virgin Galactic can launch out of South Australia."
Mr McEvoy said South Australia has a long standing tradition with space research with the building of the Woomera rocket range following World War II.
"We are pretty good at launching rockets out of SA, given our background experience out of Woomera," he said. "If there was any great place to launch rockets, it would be out of South Australia's fantastic Outback."
Some 350 people have already signed up to fly on the Virgin Galactic despite the price of tickets selling at around $250,000.
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