Welcome to Spaceport Associates!
We act as a think tank developing policy initiatives related to commercial space, and also provide an educational resource to those interested in space tourism, commercial space exploration and eventual space settlement. We have proposed joint government/commercial activities to make possible a "Gateway Earth" outpost at the edge of Earth's gravity well. Space tourists would have a hotel there, with vistas of the whole Earth, and a regular taxi service from low Earth orbit using refuelable tugs. The space tourism revenues would help pay for the building and operation of the complex, which would provide a new start and end point for governmental interplanetary missions. Development of this concept continues on the associated website www.GatewayEarth.space, which is the home site for the Gateway Earth Development Group (GEDG), formed in November 2015. The Gateway Earth concept is described in Chapter 11 of Derek Webber's No Bucks: No Buck Rogers - Creating the Business of Commercial Space, and Appendix E of Afterglow — Reflecting with the Apollo Astronauts on their Missions and Lives, both available from www.curtis-press.com. We are supporting the creation of a Maine Spaceport Complex, initiated with the launch of a Blushift Aerospace prototype biofueled Stardust rocket from the disused Loring Airforce Base in northern Maine, 31st January 2021.
We are also concerned with protection of lunar heritage sites from potential damage from future robotic and/or human explorers arriving on the Moon, and have taken a leadership position to bring about necessary regulatory protections thru the "For All Moonkind" organization. Derek Webber has been appointed Co-Chair of a Working Group within the Moon Village Association – an NGO having Observer Status at the UN’s Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) – charged with developing a Lunar Commerce Portfolio of potential future businesses on the Moon.
