Advancements in Airplane Tech Could Lead Major Airports to Become Spaceports

At the moment, there are 35 spaceports and launch facilities worldwide that can launch satellites or spacecraft into sub-orbit, orbit, and beyond. Some of these are shared with existing airports due to the nature of their horizontal launch preference, and others are dedicated sites — but what if, in the near future, this changed and watching a launch from your local international airport became the norm?

Before we begin, here are some ‘fun facts’ —

As of January 2022, the Airports Council International serves 717 members, operating 1950 airports in 185 countries.

In total, there are 61 airports with a passenger volume of over 25 million per year, which the ACI classifies as major airports. Of these, around one-third are located in North America and one-quarter in Europe. The rest are spread across Asia, Australia, and South America.

In total, there are 9300 airports across the globe, including —

• Highest altitude airport: Charana Airport in Bolivia (4060m)

• Lowest altitude airport: Bar Yehuda Airport in Israel (-385m)

• Number of airports in the northern hemisphere: 3317

• Number of airports in the southern hemisphere: 1798

  
  

Top 5 countries with the most airports —

• USA (552)
• Germany (529)
• France (472)
• South Africa (262)
• Canada (259)

The problem right now facing the spaceport industry is that the current launch cadence just can’t accommodate them all, financially and operationally. There’s a rush to build spaceports and launch facilities on new sites, mostly due to the civilian impact of having rockets launch so close to people, but the splitting of a finite resource over increasing numbers means it’s just not going to work long-term.

For example, at the moment, there are only some 60-odd planned launches in Europe. There are seven spaceports about to become operational in the UK alone, and Sweden has just announced their intention to build another. Each caters to a type of launcher — horizontal and/or vertical — the majority allowing for the smaller launches only. As this number of spaceports looks to grow, conversely, so too will the availability of suitable sites begin to shrink. There will come a point where spaceports will not only eventually reach a saturation point beyond launch cadence (if this won’t happen sooner than they expect anyway) but also a point where the various aviation authorities step in after a civilian airplane accident takes place.

Roughly 100,000 flights take off and land every day all over the globe. Let’s say an average length of a flight is two hours — that would mean that six million people fly somewhere every day. Add on top of that multiple rocket launches from multiple sites on a regular basis, and the skies could get a bit more crowded and more dangerous, especially being managed by different control authorities, different mission controllers, and so on.

“We believe in a world where more people can go to more places more often. Sustainable supersonic travel unlocks new possibilities for business relationships, prospects for vacation, and opportunities for human connection.” — Blake Scholl, CEO Boom Supersonic

But the space race is about to get a lot bigger and not for orbital launchers, and now I know why there’s a new race to build supersonic and hypersonic passenger planes.

For example, Venus Aerospace unveiled its new Mach 9 hypersonic plane design last year. Venus Aerospace’s “Stargazer” aircraft is claimed to be capable of crossing the Earth in one hour. Hypersonic technology is all the rage right now, though the specific concepts and applications are hardly anything new.

And Boom Supersonic is currently building its new Overture supersonic passenger plane, a potential successor to the ever-loved but now-retired Concorde.

Now SpaceX has said that it eventually wants to run 15 million (yeah, you read that right) flights of a passenger version of Starship and could challenge them all.

But why the focus on ludicrous speed air flight? Simple.

• Los Angeles to New York, which normally takes five hours and 25 minutes, will take 25 minutes.
• Bangkok to Dubai, which takes six hours and 25 minutes by plane, will take 27 minutes.
• Tokyo to Singapore, which can take seven hours and 10 minutes, would take just 28 minutes.
• London to New York, a seven hours and 55 minutes plane ride, takes just 29 minutes.
• New York to Paris, which takes around seven hours and 20 minutes by plane, would take just 30 minutes.

Starship will be capable of performing long voyages to Mars carrying 100 passengers and over 100 tons of cargo, but the terrestrial version of Starship would rival commercial airliners, offering to transport 1,000 passengers from one spaceport to another across the globe at 4.6 miles per second, that is equivalent to about 12 times as fast as a supersonic flight.

How much would a ticket cost? Sam Dinkins, writing for the Space Review, estimated in October 2017 it would cost over $1 million to transport 853 passengers, working out to $1,200 per person. Once this becomes a steady reality, these costs will fall — the price of a seat on Concorde was roughly the same back when it flew the skies, so this is frankly a bit of a bargain.

Obviously, this is years out, but whichever becomes the favored method of air travel in the near future, one thing is clear — it means every major airport would need to rethink its capabilities to become spaceports or space hubs in their own capacity and civil aviation/ flight control authorities will have to approve it all on top, but the reality is that progress in developing advanced civil aerospace capabilities will stem from the innovations that come out of any and all space programs, including the updating of tracking systems for civil aviation.

It is highly unlikely that the ability to fly Starship from one end of the globe to the other will require building new vertical launch and landing sites near those major destinations, it makes zero sense to do this, and no major airport owner in their right mind will want to ignore SpaceX’s current lead against every other launcher, especially with their cadence and success record so the alternative to building completely new sites owned and operated by others, having their own immigration procedures, emergency infrastructure, flight control, etc is to adjust the existing airport infrastructure to cater for both vertical and horizontal hypersonic flight — and that means airports becoming spaceports in their own right.

It makes far more sense to utilize, merge and work with the existing aviation authorities, ground staff, and mission controllers all under one roof and take advantage of economies of scale than to continually add more pressure to an already overburdened staff with oftentimes antiquated computer systems with building a spaceport next door managed by other people with their own agendas and processes.

This then opens up new opportunities for airport owners to act as sites for orbital launches, too, since they’ll have the facilities and operations to do so. We won’t need dedicated launch sites in the middle of nowhere, where there are no existing road, rail, or sea infrastructure around them.

I remember being taken to the airport to see planes taking off when I was very young, it was a Sunday afternoon treat. Perhaps one day in the future, that’ll be a thing again, only this time, we’ll be watching rockets launch to New York or the Moon just as often.

Hypersonic aviation is going to open up more opportunities than it realizes, and airports need to be on the ball to not only capture this new market but also play a vital role in the space race itself.

Unfortunately, any time saved on a hypersonic flight will still be lost dicking about in immigration queues and being forced to walk around airport shops. Some things may never change…

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