Nevada lawmakers cautious about effort to land new space program

Brendan Riley

Wednesday, Sept. 22, 1999 | 9:03 a.m.

CARSON CITY, Nev. - State lawmakers, urged to back efforts to locate a futuristic space shuttle at the Nevada Test Site, want assurances the venture will not fizzle.

Nevada is one of 15 states vying to provide a home to Lockheed Martin Corp.'s VentureStar, a new space shuttle program for the 21st century. The company plans to decide in early 2001 where to locate the lucrative space shuttle base.

A quasi-public company known as NTS Development Corp., which is devoted to redeveloping the former nuclear weapons test site, is stepping up efforts to bring the spaceport to the location 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Tim Carlson of NTS Development told the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee on Tuesday that promoters of the Nevada location already have invested $750,000 and that amount will probably double before any state assistance is sought.

Carlson added that Nevada legislators could be asked to kick in $2 million, but the investors will first try to ensure that "we have a very, very good chance at it."

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio was cautious, recalling Nevada's unsuccessful efforts in the late 1980s to become the site of a $4.4 billion "super collider" atom-smasher project. Lawmakers approved nearly $500,000 for the state's long-shot bid for the federal project, eventually killed by Congress in 1993.

Raggio, R-Reno, also asked whether Nevada might wind up in a bidding war with 14 other states also interested hosting the shuttle.

Proponents of the venture said Nevada already has an advantage because of the sprawling, isolated test site location.

The VentureStar is designed to replace the 1970s-era NASA space shuttles at lower costs.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said the project would provide 2,000 new jobs and contribute about $3 billion a year to the Nevada economy.

Also vying to land the spaceport are Arizona, California, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Washington, New Mexico, Florida, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Virginia, Texas, South Carolina and North Carolina.