spacecity for developing countries

8/7/2019 Spacecity for Developing Countries

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This paper was prepared and completed on November 2010 to commemorate the 11th

anniversary of the publication of the first

serious article on commercial spaceport and space tourism in a Malaysian newspaper, “KLIA as a Spaceport”. It was published as a

full page article in The Sun on 15 November 1999 from an interview of the principal author by the newspaper.

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THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A COMMERCIAL SUBORBITAL SPACEPORT TO A

MODERN SMALL DEVELOPING COUNTRY AND SPACE CITY

Norul Ridzuan Zakaria(1), Dato Nasri Nasron(2)

(1) Space Tourism Society Malaysia Chapter, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, [email protected](2) Setegap Ventures Resources Sdn Bhd, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, [email protected]

ABSTRACT

The major spaceflight ground facilities or spaceports in

the United States of America and Russia were built

during the era of space race in the 60s and 70s driven not

only by economy and technology but also mainly by

contemporary politics. The similar facilities built inBrazil, China and India was also driven by the

combination of contemporary economy, technology and

politics before the era of space tourism.

For a modern small developing country, building aspaceport as those built in the USA, Russia, Brazil, China

and India is not only too expensive, but also unsuitable

and impractical during today’s era of space tourism,

because space tourism has changed the view and

understanding of both the government and public towards

spaceflight.

Space tourism has made popular the idea of commercial

spaceflight and commercial spaceport. These commercial

factors of space tourism are transforming spaceflight

from a politically driven to economically driven activity.

Both the government and public of today understand thatspaceflight is now available commercially to everybody,

not only limited to government sponsored astronauts as a

decade ago.

Being commercial is being affordable economically, and

the popularity of space tourism as a form of commercialspaceflight has created the opportunity for modern small

developing countries to justify the idea of developing

commercial spaceports, as the spaceports are suppose to

be economically driven and will promote various

industries directly and indirectly related to it.

During the era of commercial orbital spaceflight in thefuture, space tourism will reach maturity when there will

be orbital spaceflights transporting space tourists to

hotels in orbit. At this stage, commercial spaceports will

be a major economic generator and catalyst. However,

even during the early stage of space tourism or during theera of commercial suborbital spaceflight, a commercial

spaceport can also be an economic generator and catalyst.

Such commercial spaceports will be significant to

modern small developing countries to enable the

countries to enjoy the benefits of spaceflight operation

similar to that enjoyed by countries that had built their

spaceports during the space race era and before the space

tourism era. Development of such spaceport in a modern

small developing country can also be economically justified.

This commercial suborbital spaceflight facility or

spaceport will provide services to suborbital space

tourism, commercial zero-gravity missions, researchesand education and become catalysts to commercial land

and property development and also other economic and

commercial development. All these commercial space

and non-space activities and developments resulting from

the operation of commercial suborbital spaceports can be

territorially grouped together and known as space city.

1. SPACEPORTS RESULTING FROM SPACE

RACE

Space race was the competition in the development of

space infrastructures between the United States of America (USA) and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

(USSR) in the 60s and 70s to dominate space travel and

emerge as the most powerful government in the world.

The powerhouse behind the race in both governments

was a combination of contemporary technology,

economy and politics.

The USA and USSR governments were able to compete

in the space race because both had obtained the required

rocket technology from Germany after World War II, and

the USA particularly has the economic capability to doso, but the most important was that both governments

were able to politically justify their very huge spendingof money, human resources and time in the race, and this

political justification was more acceptable and important

than the economic justification during that time.

What are now called Kennedy Space Center in the USAand Baikonur Cosmodrome in the USSR are the most

significant and physically visible results of the space

race. Without the space race and the eagerness of the

American and USSR governments to dominate the world




anniversary of the publication of the first serious article on

commercial spaceport and space tourism in a Malaysian newspaper, “KLIA as a Spaceport”. It was published as a full page article in The Sun on 15

November 1999 from an interview of the principal author by the newspaper.

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by being the leader in space travel and technology, both

Kennedy Space Center and Baikonur Cosmodrome may

not be as huge and costly as they are today. Bothspaceports are so huge territorially and so costly

economically that they are not possible to be built with

today’s economic and political scenarios.

Another reason for the spaceports to be so huge and

costly was that the space launch vehicles which were

launched from the spaceports were totally expendable

launch vehicles and evolved from intercontinental

ballistic missiles. Such launch vehicles were not designed

to be cost-effective in their development and operation

and so did their spaceports.

These spaceports which were understood to be necessary

to compete in the space race cannot be built anymoretoday because there is no more space race and

particularly for a modern developing country, such

spending of huge amount of money cannot be justified

economically.

2. SPACEPORTS DEVELOPED BEFORE THE

ERA OF SPACE TOURISM

The space race did result in the establishment of the USAand USSR as the 2 most advanced countries in space

travel and technology and powerful countries in the

world. This has encouraged other countries with theagenda of being regional powers to develop and operate

similar spaceports. Among these counties were Brazil,

China and India.

Even though these 3 regional powers did not have themight of economy like that of the USA or technology as

that of USSR, they did have politically strong enough

regional agendas to develop such spaceports. During thattime, developing such space travel facilities were the

right thing to do for the 3 countries.

Like the spaceports in the USA and USSR developed

during the space race, spaceports developed in Brazil,

China and India were for the operation of expendable

launch vehicles, which were not economic and not meant

to be commercial.

Another major spaceport developed before the era of space tourism which also operates expendable launch

vehicles is the spaceport at French Guiana now operatedby European Space Agency. However, with the

advancing technology, the expendable launch vehicleshave become more efficient even though still not

economic.

A requirement for a spaceport for expendable launch

vehicles is that the spaceport needs to have a vast area for

the safe dumping of the expendable components of its

launch vehicles. Since 80% of the launch vehicles are

dumped as the expendable components, a safe and vastdumping area is the most important factor in determining

the site of the spaceport.

These spaceports usually are located on the east coast of a continent so that the expendable components of the

launch vehicles can be dumped into the ocean on its east.

The components fall towards the east because the

direction and momentum of Earth rotation is towards the

east. For a spaceport not located on the east coast of a

continent, the safe dumping area on its east is a vast

empty dessert or tundra.

These spaceports are not only very costly to be developed

and operated, but also cannot be built at locations withouta safe and vast dumping area.

3. COMMERCIAL SPACEPORTS RESULTING

FROM SPACE TOURISM

The era of space tourism begins on June 2004 when

SpaceShipOne, a piloted prototype of a suborbital

tourism spaceplane had successfully flown to reach 80km

from sea level and landed safely. Now, a fleet of commercial suborbital tourism spaceplanes are being

built based on the prototype and will start carrying space

tourists very soon. Several other prototypes of suborbitaltourism spaceplane are also being developed around the

world.

In a decade or more, orbital tourism spaceplanes will be

flown to take space tourists to orbit. Later, there will beorbital spaceplanes transferring space tourists to hotels in

orbit. During this era of orbital tourism, there will be

commercial spaceport dedicated to the already maturedspace tourism industry.

However, spaceports for space tourism are already beingplanned at many locations around the world and a

commercial spaceport is being built in the USA. These

spaceports are being planned to serve suborbital tourism,

which will begin very soon and prepared to serve orbital

tourism which will begin in a decade or more. In

Malaysia, such spaceport planning was reported in major

newspapers as early as 1999.

Early suborbital tourism spaceplanes will only performsimple economic suborbital spaceflight from the

spaceports. The economic spaceflights will mostly be of near-vertical flight to reach slightly above 80km from sea

level.

The suborbital spaceplanes will take-off horizontally like

conventional airplane from the runway. The spaceplane







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may use jet engine or rocket engine for take-off. Then it

will fly near vertically to slightly above 80km from sea

level, as this altitude is considered as the lowest level of space. The spaceplane later will reach its maximum

altitude where its passengers will experience zero-gravity

for less than 1 minute before it returns towards Earth due

to gravity. The spaceplane may land horizontally under jet power or unpowered on the runway like conventional

airplane or glider.

However, for safety, the spaceplane should not be

allowed to descend near vertically directly above the

spaceport. It will only be allowed to approach the

spaceport with near horizontal flight.

Figure 1. Langkasa 4 flight profile. Langkasa 4 is a

Malaysian conceptual design of VTOL suborbital tourismspaceplane, Other than its VTOL, its flight profile is

similar to other proposed suborbital tourismspaceplanes. Since Langkasa 4 is VTOL capable, it can

operate from spacepad or low-cost small spaceport

without runway.

The simple flight profile and horizontal take-off and

landing of the early suborbital tourism spaceplanes will

enable existing conventional airports to function as

spaceports. The suitable airports to function as spaceports

will be small airports with not many flights to handle ormajor international airports with capability of handling

many flights and the intention of providing suborbital

spaceflight as their new and extra services.

These airports can use their existing facilities particularly

their runways to support suborbital spaceflight. They

need only several extra facilities such as hangar to

service the spaceplane, storage for rocket fuel, terminal

for space tourists and maybe special tower and radar to

monitor suborbital spaceflight.

Figure 2. A simple commercial suborbital spaceport can

be an existing small airport. Suborbital spaceplanes

which take-off and land horizontally can share theexisting runway and other facilities at the airport with

other airplanes. The spaceplane in these illustrations is

Ascender, the suborbital spaceplane concept proposed by

Bristol Spaceplanes of the United Kingdom.

Suborbital spaceplanes which share the runway with

conventional airplanes may need to land with jet engine

for safety reason. The jet engine will enable the

spaceplane to abort or delay its landing if it needs to doso to avoid accident with airplanes on the runway.

These suborbital spaceplanes will be fully reusable andtherefore will not have expendable components. The

reusability of the spaceplanes will not only decrease the

operation cost of the spaceplanes, but also that of the

spaceports.







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Several spaceports which are also existing airports are

being planned. One being a popular such spaceport at the

time of writing is located at Curacao island in theCaribbean. This spaceport, even at the planning stage,

already contributes to the economy of Curacao, because

it promotes the island, which is already a well known

tourism destination in the Caribbean.

Caribbean Spaceport as it is known today is an example

of an economic driven commercial spaceport, where

there is a symbiotic relationship between the spaceport

and existing tourism industry in Curacao.

However, there are totally new commercial spaceportsbeing planned and built. Such spaceports focus only on

suborbital spaceflight and later most probably will be

upgraded to serve orbital spaceflight. At their earlierdevelopment stage, these spaceports will have runways

specially designed for suborbital spaceplanes. A

spaceport like this is being built in New Mexico, the

USA.

There will also be VTOL (vertical take-off & landing)

suborbital spaceplanes and single stage reusable rockets

providing suborbital tourism spaceflights from the

spaceport, which will not require runway. Therefore theremay also be spaceports without runway, and a concept of

small low-cost spaceport without runway is called

spacepad.

These spaceports will not only serve space tourism, but

also other economic activities. Among them will be

government space programs and industries which utilize

suborbital spaceflight.

Governments of modern small developing countries may

be interested to conduct space programs which utilizesuborbital spaceflight because such spaceflight will be

able to offer zero-gravity research opportunity. This zero-

gravity platform is cost effective for basic zero-gravityresearch suitable for space programs belongs to modern

small developing countries.

There will also be other industries which will be the users

of suborbital spaceflight. Such industries will be from the

education, product commercialization, advertising,

entertainment and also research and development.

These commercial spaceports which start to emerge intoday’s era of space tourism are cost effective and will

have symbiotic relationship with existing industriesparticularly the tourism industry if they are built in

modern small developing countries.

Figure 3. A low-cost small spacepad with Langkasa 2and Langkasa 4. This spacepad consist of a pair of VTOL

platforms designed to look like an ancient Egyptian

temple. The obelisk is actually a control and observation

tower to monitor VTOL of suborbital spaceplanes. The

application of ancient Egypt architecture in the design of

this spacepad demonstrates the possible creativity and

innovation that can be applied in designing spacepads.







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4. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF A COMMERCIAL

SUBORBITAL SPACEPORT TO A MODERN

SMALL DEVELOPING COUNTRY

Modern small developing countries are developing

countries which have democratic political atmosphere,

dynamic economy and relatively small geographicalterritory. These countries have well established

information and communication infrastructures not

restricted from international community and their citizens

are well informed on the development of global

economy, politics and technology.

The governments of modern small developing countriesare dynamic governments, which have vision to

transform their countries into fully developed countries

and welcome all kind of positive modern development ineconomy, politics and technology. However those

developments must be within their limited economic

capability, which is much smaller than that of the

developed countries or countries with very big population

and local market. Malaysia and a few countries in South

East Asia and other geographical regions are considered

as modern small developing countries.

Space travel has always catches the attention of thegovernment and people of modern small developing

countries. The government and people of these countries

are fully aware of the development in space travel indeveloped countries and everywhere else in the world

through their well established unlimited information and

communication infrastructures.

Both the government and people of modern smalldeveloping countries realize that they should have space

travel infrastructures, as they understand the significance

of these space travel infrastructures in the globalestablishment and development of their economy,

politics, education and culture. However, they are also

fully aware of the economics of the space travelinfrastructures.

Therefore, politics and government agendas alone are not

the determining factors for the realization of spaceport in

modern small developing countries, but economy is the

more significant and influencing factor.

Spaceports for expendable launch vehicles like the

smaller version of Kennedy Space Center of BaikonurCosmodrome will not be practical or welcomed in these

countries, as they are not based on an economic orcommercial model. The spaceports suitable for these

countries will be commercial spaceports.

The emergence of commercial space travel or space

tourism has made possible the development of

commercial spaceports and created an opportunity for

modern small developing countries to develop their own

commercial spaceports.

For the time being, the developing countries can only

plan on the development of commercial suborbital

spaceports, because only suborbital spaceflights will beavailable in the near future, while orbital spaceflights will

only be available in a decade or more. However, this

limitation is an advantage to the developing countries,

because it enables lower cost spaceport projects, which

will be more practical and desirable to the developing

countries. To start directly with orbital spaceflight is not

practical at all to developing countries, which lack thenecessary economy and technology. Orbital spaceflight

however may be included in the strategic or long term

planning of the spaceport.

Suborbital spaceflight is also enough for a modern small

developing country to have its own significant

commercial space program, since suborbital spaceflight

does reach space and offer zero-gravity. This country can

start its cost effective space program as soon as there is a

suborbital spaceflight service at its spaceport.

To encourage one, the country should promote andmarket its spaceport and give various incentives to

potential suborbital spaceflight operators. One of the

operators may be interested to operate its suborbitalspaceplane from the spaceport.

By having a commercial suborbital spaceport in

operation, a modern small developing country can have

various space activities, which can only be done at adeveloped country with a spaceport. These activities are

also significant to the developing country to provide its

citizens access to space, enable its government to executespace missions and researches, provide opportunities to

its universities and colleges to conduct courses and

research in aerospace engineering, rocket science andtechnology and space tourism, qualify its citizens as

astronauts, and promote various industries directly and

indirectly related to spaceflight.

Without own suborbital spaceport, a developing country

has to spend too much to send its citizen to space and

conduct own space program. With own spaceport inoperation and with suborbital spaceflight available at the

spaceport both the government and people can go tospace with an acceptable budget.

Access to space is important for a country, and

commercial spaceport is the access to space to modern

small developing counties. It is also the catalyst to all

kind of commercial activities directly and indirectly

related to spaceflight. The economics of a commercial







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spaceport is such that the cost of its development and

operation will be acceptable to the government and

people of modern small developing countries.

5. SPACE CITY

There will be commercial developments within aperimeter of a commercial spaceport. In general it will

consist of commercial space travel or space tourism,

government space programs, spaceflight user industries,

spaceflight-themed entertainment and space themed

property development.

If an existing airport is developed to function as aspaceport besides its normal operation as airport, the area

around the airport can be commercially developed for

such developments provided there is enough land aroundthe airport. The developed area will be a new center of

economy and commercial activities.

Suborbital space tourism is a complex economy. It will

support various economic activities to grow around the

commercial spaceport. The space tourists will need

accommodation and facilities for training, medical

services, entertainment and shopping. Their families may

also accompany them, and contribute to the economy.

Government space program will be very contributive in

supporting the operation of commercial spaceport. Thegovernment should consider the commercial spaceport as

its official spaceport for its space programs. The

government can train people to become astronauts and

space scientists using the suborbital spaceflights

available.

At the time of writing, sending people to space to qualify

them as astronauts is very expensive, as the onlyavailable vehicle to carry people to space is the Russian

Soyuz launch vehicle. If a man or woman is transferred

to the International Space Station (ISS) by Soyuz, theman or woman or the sponsors of the man or woman will

have to pay USD30 million for that. Such cost is too

much for a modern small developing country.

However, if there is a commercial suborbital spaceflight

available, the government can send men and women

aboard the suborbital spaceflight and qualify them asastronauts. Qualifying a man or woman as an astronaut

using the service of commercial suborbital spaceflightwill only cost 0.5% - 1.0% of the cost of sending a man

or woman as an astronaut aboard ISS, and in the futurethat cost will be lower as its market becomes bigger and

the industry becomes matured.

Figure 4. General layout of a space city developed within

a perimeter of an existing airport. The activities such as

commercial suborbital user industries, suborbital space

tourism and government space programs (colored

yellow) are the direct users of and income contributors to

the spaceport. Activities such as space-themed residential

property development, space-themed commercial

property development and spaceflight-themed

entertainment are the indirect benefactors and

contributors of the spaceport.

The commercial spaceport can also be the center for

zero-gravity research for the government space program,

because commercial suborbital spaceflights also offer

zero-gravity. An advantage of doing zero-gravity

research aboard suborbital spaceflight is that the

suborbital spaceflight can be repeated, and therefore theresearch can be repeated. The capability to repeat aresearch is very important to change the researchvariables and confirm the conclusion of the research.This can be done because commercial suborbital

spaceplane will be able to offer suborbital spaceflight

with zero-gravity research activity at the cost of only 1%

to that offered by ISS.







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The government can further support the economy and

establishment of the commercial spaceport by relocating

its agencies related to space such as the space agency,meteorology department and remote sensing department

to the area developed around the spaceport. Furthermore

those agencies are also the users of suborbital spaceflight.

There will also be private agencies using the service of

commercial suborbital spaceflight at the commercial

spaceport. They will create a new and exciting industry

which combines advertizing, event management and

entertainment.

There will be agencies which offer advertizing using thecommercial suborbital spaceflight, where the suborbital

spaceplane will be sponsored very similar to the

sponsorship of Formula 1 racing cars. The suborbitalspaceflight will also be offered as a platform for

advertizing campaign of products where the products can

be taken aboard the suborbital spaceflight and advertized

accordingly.

There will be some events or celebrations using

suborbital spaceflights, such as zero-gravity in space

marriage where a bride and groom will ride aboard a

suborbital spaceflight and the groom will put the weddingring on the bride’s finger in zero-gravity in space. Such

activity is suitable even aboard a small commercial

suborbital spaceplane with the condition that the smallspaceplane has a pair of passenger seats installed side by

side such as Langkasa 2, the proposed commercial

VTOL suborbital spaceplane conceptual design by Space

Tourism Society Malaysia Chapter (STS-MC).

Entertainment industry can always consider commercial

suborbital spaceflight as its component. Besides carrying

human passengers, commercial suborbital spaceplanescan carry video recording systems for unique recording

of space or zero-gravity environment visuals or movies

for the entertainment industry.

A component of entertainment industry that can take the

advantage of the operation of a commercial spaceport is

spaceflight-themed entertainment center or park. Not

many people will be able to afford the ride aboard the

commercial suborbital spaceflight, but many can afford

the ride aboard virtual spaceflights available atspaceflight-themed parks. These parks will be equipped

with various spaceflight simulators to provide the virtualspaceflight experiences to their visitors.

Figure 5. Langkasa 2 is a conceptual design of VTOL

suborbital tourism spaceplane proposed by STS-MC. Its

2 passengers are seated side by side. This seating

configuration is suitable for a bride and a groom on a“zero-gravity marriage in space” or a loving couple on a

“zero-gravity honeymoon space ride”.

An interesting spaceflight simulator can be built from a

digital dome immersive theater, which currently beingused as planetarium and science theater. This theater with

its dome screen, can create a spaceflight full dome format

movie, which will be realistic enough for entertainment,

and a large “spaceflight theater” will also be cost

effective because “it will be able to take several hundreds

of passengers on a ride”. Since there can be manyspaceflight full dome format movies offered by a

spaceflight theater, there can also be “many packages of

spaceflight to various locations in orbit or above variouslocations on Earth”.

Figure 6. The principal author with his 2 friends at the

front of Adler Planetarium in Chicago, the USA. This

planetarium and many other planetariums are digital

dome immersive theaters, which can function as effective

low-cost space tourism simulators at spaceflight-themed

parks near commercial spaceports.







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There will also be customers from the education sector to

the commercial spaceport, because commercial suborbitalspaceflight will be very useful for science and

engineering education. Schools, colleges and universities

can start offering courses which include practical

activities and research in zero-gravity, rocket science,high altitude science, and aerospace engineering using

suborbital flights. These schools, colleges and

universities are suitable to be built in the developed area

near the spaceport.

The operation of commercial spaceport will provide

services to biotechnology industry as there will beproduct development processes in the industry which

require zero-gravity. Such industries include

pharmaceuticals may require to perform zero-gravityexperiments or product testing.

There will be commercial and residential properties

developed within a perimeter of a commercial spaceport.

The residential properties particularly will provide

opportunities to architects to design creative and

innovative space-themed houses and apartments. These

designs can be based on interesting astronomical

phenomena and objects such as solar eclipse, orbitalmotions or spiral galaxies.

Another method of creating a space-themed residential isby equipping the residential with astronomical facilities

or making it looks like astronomical facilities. This can

be done by installing astronomical observatories on the

roof of the houses and apartments. Buildings with

observatories will be automatically associated with space. Figure 7. A basic and simple space-themed apartment.

This 5-storeys apartment has an observatory equipped

with robotic telescope on top of its roof. Each house in

the apartment has a digital output from the telescope,

which can be connected to a TV or a PC in the house,

enabling the image of objects observed by the telescope

to be projected on the TV or PC. Each house has a given

time in a week to use the telescope as its residences wish,which can be controlled by a PC in the house. The

telescope can observe astronomical phenomena and

suborbital spaceflights. By having such observatory, the

apartment becomes space-themed because its residences

have a direct access to the observatory, which make them

“closed to and familiar with space”, and the apartment will be designed and built with a consideration towards

the operation of the observatory. Apartments like this can

be part of the residential property development at a

space city and contribute towards “space-themed life

style”. The use of solar panels on the roof on the building

will also be extensive as solar energy is considered as“the energy directly from space”.







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All these economic activities and commercial

developments will occur within a perimeter of a

commercial spaceport, and this territory is known as“space city”. A space city can be developed at an area

around an existing airport upgraded to a commercial

spaceport or as a totally new development project with

the commercial spaceport as its major component. For amodern small developing country, a space city can be a

very significant national economic, political and social

catalyst.

A modern small developing country can also develop its

own fleet of suborbital tourism spaceplanes to be

operational at its space city, because the cost of developing a prototype of the suborbital spaceplane

which can carry a passenger to reach space will not

exceed the cost of sending a person to the ISS.

An inexpensive way to make the spaceport operational is

offering zero-gravity flights by a small passenger

jetplane. This jetplane cannot reach space, but can

perform multiple zero-gravity flights in a trip.

In the future, an existing highly populated large city with

skyscrapers can also be a space city by having a

commercial VTOL spaceport. The spaceport can be anexisting skyscraper or a new building at the city. It will

also function as the main station for the trains and buses

in the city, enabling the spaceport to be the main stationfor land and space transport. This will be possible when

VTOL suborbital tourism spaceplanes are in operation.







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Figure 8. A 100-storeys commercial VTOL spaceport

comprise of a spacepad, hotel, medical center,

spaceflight simulator and preparation center, an

administration center, entertainment center, offices, a

shopping mall and a train and bus station. Suchcommercial VTOL spaceport can be built at the center of a future space city with high rise buildings, large

population and limited space.

6. REFERENCES

1. Cadbury, D. (2006). Space Race – The Battle to Rule

the Heavens, Harper Perennial, London, United

Kingdom.

2. Hardesty, V. Eisman, G. (2007). Epic Rivalry – The

Inside Story of the Soviet and Ameican Space Race,National Geographic Society, Washington DC, USA.

3. Barbree, J. (2007). Live from Cape Canaveral,

Smithsonian Books, New York, USA.

4. Ridzuan Zakaria, N. Zahari, R. Abd Majid, A A.

Othman, J. (May 2007). Symbiotic Relationship

between the Astronaut Program and Space Tourism

Development – A Third World Perspective, 2nd

International Association for the Advancement of

Space Safety, Chicago, USA.

5. Ridzuan Zakaria, N. Mettauer, A. Abu, J. RoshdiHassan, M. Taufeek Ismail, A. Othman, J. Zhuhaida

Shaari, C. Nasron, N. (May 2010). Human Factors

Engineering in Designing the Passengers’ Cockpit of

the Malaysian Commercial Suborbital Spaceplane,

4th

International Association for the Advancement of

Space Safety conference, Huntsville, AL, USA.

6. Ridzuan Zakaria, N. Abu, J. Taufeek Ismail, A. Aziz

Basri, A. (October 2010), Langkasa 2 and Langkasa

4 Vertical Take-Off & Landing Suborbital Tourism

Spaceplane Conceptual Designs and Spacepad ,

Space Tourism Society Malaysia Chapter, Kuala

Lumpur, Malaysia.

7. SOURCES OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Alpina Langkasa (Figures 1, 3, 5 & 8).

2. Bristol Spaceplanes Ltd. (Figure 2).3. Setegap Venture Resources Sdn Bhd. (Figure 4 & 7).

4. Space Tourism Society Malaysia Chapter (Figure 6)

spacecity for developing countries

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