{"id":38369,"date":"2014-08-27T10:05:25","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T15:05:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=38369"},"modified":"2014-08-27T10:05:25","modified_gmt":"2014-08-27T15:05:25","slug":"can-the-private-space-industry-stabilize-a-boom-and-bust-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/08\/27\/can-the-private-space-industry-stabilize-a-boom-and-bust-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"Can the Private Space Industry Stabilize a Boom-and-Bust Economy?"},"content":{"rendered":"

From KXWT News:\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/h4>\n
\"Jeff<\/a>

(Travis Bubenik\/KXWT)<\/p>

Jeff Greason, CEO of XCOR, says the company\u2019s not marketing flights to \u201ctourists.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

By early next year, alongside the sound of jets landing at the Midland International Airport, you might also hear sonic booms from space flights re-entering the earth\u2019s atmosphere.<\/p>\n

This month, the private space company\u00a0XCOR<\/a>\u00a0broke ground at the airport, where it plans to launch commercial space flights next year. Some hope this new industry will stabilize the region\u2019s traditionally oil and gas-based boom and bust economy.<\/p>\n

The airport is still waiting to get the go-ahead from the FAA to launch those flights, but XCOR says despite some delays, it\u2019s likely that will happen before a September 15th\u00a0deadline.<\/p>\n\n

XCOR President Andrew Nelson says the groundbreaking ceremony the company held recently for its new research and development hangar is proof of just how confident XCOR is that the spaceport license will be approved.<\/p>\n

The hangar is where the company plans to finish building, and eventually to start launching, its\u201cLynx\u201d<\/a>\u00a0spacecraft.<\/p>\n

It looks like a tiny space shuttle, and anyone who can afford the $95,000 ticket up will be able to take a tour of the heavens.<\/p>\n

But Jeff Greason, XCOR\u2019s CEO, is quick to note that his company\u2019s marketing these flights mainly to researchers, not just wealthy people, and according to him, certainly not to tourists.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t call it tourism,\u201d he says, adding that part of XCOR\u2019s goal is to make these flights to space more affordable over time.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the price of taking people up to some kind of orbiting platform or laboratory gets down to a few million dollars, hundreds of them a year are going to go,\u201d Greason says, \u201cnot because they\u2019re tourists, not because it\u2019s fun, but for the same reason that you take workers out to an oil platform \u2013 because they have something to do when they\u2019re there.\u201d<\/p>\n

It makes sense that he\u2019d make that comparison. After all, this is a brand new industry coming to a region that\u2019s been dominated by oil and gas for decades.<\/p>\n

The company and the city say XCOR\u2019s presence could help diversify and stabilize an economy that\u2019s all-too-familiar with the boom-and-bust cycle.<\/p>\n

Robert Rendall, Chairman of the Midland Development Corporation, the tax-funded group that\u2019s\u00a0helping XCOR with more than $10 million,<\/a>\u00a0says although the Permian Basin community loves the oil and gas industry, they understand the benefits of diversifying.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that sometimes you need something extra to help mellow out those ups and downs when you have commodity price fluctuations,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The MDC is backing the project in the hopes it will create new jobs, bring in tax revenue andbring other space companies<\/a>\u00a0to the region.<\/p>\n

According to Rendall, this is all part of a conscious decision to diversify that the city made a decade ago. He says XCOR might be a long-term investment, but that it\u2019s a smart one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe people that are involved in commercial aerospace are very much like our wildcatters of West Texas,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese individuals take risks. They do it very carefully, but just like the oil and gas exploration people, there is an element of risk going into a new entrepreneurial adventure, and something where no one\u2019s done it before.\u201d<\/p>\n

UT Permian Basin Economics Professor Scott Carson says he\u2019s heard these promises about a new economic future for the region before.<\/p>\n

He says in years past the hype was about retail, then healthcare, then there were plans for amulti-million-dollar, job-creating nuclear power plant<\/a>\u00a0that was touted as something that would put the region at the forefront of nuclear research.<\/p>\n

But that plan\u00a0fizzled,<\/a>\u00a0and Carson says this one still could too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still in the planning stages,\u201d he says, \u201cso it wouldn\u2019t be a big driver for large-scale employment sources, and that\u2019s what would have an effect on the Permian Basin economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Permian Basin is petrochemical, and that\u2019s what its labor force is geared towards. That\u2019s what they\u2019re trained in. That\u2019s what really moves the economy in the Permian Basin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Midland\u2019s former mayor\u00a0Wes Perry<\/a>\u00a0was around for the early days of negotiating with XCOR. He says at first he didn\u2019t see why the company would want to move here, and he wasn\u2019t sure they ever actually would, but he says the business-friendly environment in Texas ultimately sealed the deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe political and economic environment in California was absolutely killing them,\u201d Perry says, \u201cso obviously we knew how to handle that.\u201d<\/p>\n

XCOR still won\u2019t bring in as many jobs as oil and gas does, but Nelson says the difference with his company is that it\u2019s not tied down by the ups and downs of the energy game.<\/p>\n

He says he\u2019s \u201cnot at all\u201d worried about another bust.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean we\u2019re coming from Mojave, California where it\u2019s a perpetual bust,\u201d he says. \u201cOur customer base isn\u2019t driven by the same fundamentals that the oil and gas industry is driven by.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether or not the private space industry actually re-defines the Basin\u2019s economy like some are promising, the millions of dollars in incentives and the\u00a0political enthusiasm<\/a>\u00a0for this industry in Texas means if XCOR does stick around for the long-haul, it\u2019ll succeed here far faster than it might anywhere else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From KXWT News:\u00a0 By early next year, alongside the sound of jets landing at the Midland International Airport, you might also hear sonic booms from space flights re-entering the earth\u2019s atmosphere. This month, the private space company\u00a0XCOR\u00a0broke ground at the airport, where it plans to launch commercial space flights next year. Some hope this new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[57],"tags":[21],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38369"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38369"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38374,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38369\/revisions\/38374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}