Spaceport sites stagnant

RAYMONDVILLE — Ten years ago, the Texas Aerospace Commission touted South Texas as the future home of an aerospace industry that local leaders boasted could rival Cape Canaveral.

More than $2 million later, many see the dream fading like a puff of smoke.

In Willacy County, South Texas’ spaceport project lies stagnant. A year ago, officials pulled the plug on Brazoria County’s push into outer space. And, in the West Texas desert, school funding helps keep the Pecos project adrift.

“I sure am disappointed,” said Bill Summers, president of the Valley Chamber of Commerce who helped spearhead the South Texas project 10 years ago.

But Gov. Rick Perry’s office stands behind the spending that laid the foundations for a future aerospace industry, said Krista Piferrer, Perry’s spokeswoman in Austin.

So far, the state has spent $2.12 million to help the three spaceport projects “get off the ground,” she said.

Now, private companies are using spaceport sites to build the industry, she said.

“Spaceports and other (aerospace) ventures are worthwhile and are the industry of the future,” she said.

Near Port Mansfield, a tangle of prickly pear and mesquite juts from the site that many boasted would push Willacy County into the Space Age.

“We’re disappointed,” said Lisandro Ramon, president of the Willacy County Development Corp. “Nothing’s happening.”

In Angleton, Brazoria County commissioners killed their project last February. After a 4-1 vote, County Judge Joe King said too much money fueled too little return.

In West Texas, the Pecos County Westex Spaceport Development Corp. uses its educational program to court schools that help fund its operation, said Doug May, executive director of the Fort Stockton Economic Development Corp.

“You have to be pretty self-sustaining,” May said.

The Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to close air space to protect against terrorist threats shut down rocket launches, May said.

“We’ve turned down a lot of stuff,” May said of prospective clients. “We’re still moving. We’d still like to see that kind of technology in our part of the world.”

Nearly 10 years ago, the South Texas Spaceport Consortium — a 13-county alliance forged to leverage funding — touted a regional project that would launch rockets with payloads such as communications satellites.

From the South Texas scrub, an aerospace industry would rise to revolutionize the South Texas economy, creating as many as 5,000 jobs, local leaders boasted.

“I expected it to be full-blown,” Summers said. “I really thought there was a chance.”

In 2002, the state Legislature earmarked $500,000 for studies to determine the project’s feasibility. Factors that determined the Willacy County site’s viability included its proximity to the equator.

A year later, the launch of a 22-pound rocket heralded the spaceport’s apogee, drawing a crowd of about 700 from as far as Corpus Christi and Laredo.

Then, in 2004, Perry’s office earmarked $175,000 to help boost the project off the ground, driving local officials to plan to develop a building and launch pad.

But overflight risks led to opposition in Port Mansfield that forced officials to change plans. Instead of developing a launch site, officials planned to launch rockets from a barge about five miles off shore in the Gulf of Mexico.

“The governor’s office didn’t make any more money available for spaceports,” Ramon said.

Like others here, he’s still waiting for a Maryland man who plans a rocket launch, Ramon said. But that might be two years away, he said.

“We, as board members, get frustrated sometimes,” Ramon said, referring to his prospective client. “Is this thing ever going to materialize?”