NTS a step closer to space program

Wednesday, Aug. 26, 1998 | 10:47 a.m.

Nevada is about to launch itself into the 21st century aboard a commercial spacecraft.

The Senate passed the Commercial Space Act before leaving for its August recess. The act authorizes the Office of Commercial Space Transportation to license commercial retrievable vehicles.

For Nevada, the act will help start a program at the Nevada Test Site, 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to send communications satellites into orbit.

The act will help reduce the cost of expensive, one-shot boosters in current use by allowing a company such as Kistler Aerospace to launch commercial satellites and recover the reuseable launching craft.

Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., Bob Graham, D-Fla., and Connie Mack, R-Fla., sponsored the legislation to allow the commercial space program to develop.

"This legislation will unlock the doors of this nation's space programs to private industry," Reid said today. "And it will allow work to begin on the next generation of space vehicles. Its potential impact on Nevada business growth and development is tremendous."

Reid announced the development at the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce office on Howard Hughes Parkway. Tim Carlson of the Nevada Test Site Development Corp. and Jerry Johnson, U.S. Department of Energy Nevada Operations manager, joined him.

Kistler Aerospace is a privately funded company based in Kirkland, Wash., since 1993. It built a testing site in Australia and plans to begin construction at the Nevada Test Site after 1999 if the Federal Aviation Administration grants permission for reuseable craft.

Kistler Vice President Jack Gregory said the FAA had not granted the company permission to launch and retrieve craft at the Test Site, but the action by Congress should help.