In the Orlando area, to what uses are parcels of commercial real estate put?
Office buildings, of course, and shops, restaurants and the like.
But the state of Florida has an interesting and somewhat unusual plan for a 150-acre parcel of real estate north of Cape Canaveral. It recently asked NASA to transfer the land to the state so it could explore the option of developing a commercial space port.
Over the past few years, commercial space activity has gone from an idea dreamed about by science-fiction authors to a concept with real potential. Billionaire Richard Branson, for example, has made commercial space travel a priority of his and a great many companies use satellites as a core part of their business.
It seems like the state of Florida is quite serious about the possibility of a commercial space port. Its space-development art, Space Florida, has committed $2.3 million to perform environmental studies on the land, pay for appraisals, conduct title searches and otherwise lay the foundation for the port. Those are the basic legal activities that any business or private individual must do when acquiring a parcel of real estate.
Commercial space ports currently exist in Virginia, Alaska and California as well as in Mexico (where Branson has said he plans to launch a "fleet of suborbital passenger spaceships.")
Although Florida has a long affiliation with space, some people think the money it's spending on the possible space port could be better spent elsewhere, like small business incubators or providing free or low-cost training classes to entrepreneurs. What do you think? Does exploring the possibility of a potential space port seem like a judicious use of funds?
Source: Reuters, "Florida wants NASA land to develop commercial spaceport," Irene Klotz, Sept. 24, 2012
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