Spaceport Proposal
In October 2011, the Colorado governor formally requested that the Federal government designate Colorado a "spaceport state" and that Front Range Airport be designated a spaceport for suborbital horizontal takeoff (HTVL and HTHL) flights. Spaceport designation would allow a facility offering suborbital tourism, travel and cargo transport from one point to another on Earth. "No vertical launches are planned at Front Range, unlike most of the other eight certified U.S. spaceports. Instead, space planes — an emerging technology — will use regular runways and jet engines to take off and land, switching to rocket power above 50,000 feet."
Media sources have suggested that the Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser spaceplane may be used for suborbital spaceflights and that the Colorado Spaceport may prove to be the preferred location, over Spaceport America in New Mexico.
As of May 2012, news reports indicate that the Spaceport Colorado proposal is gaining traction with political interests at the State and Federal level as well as with industry participants. One of those commercial interests was XCOR Aerospace, who was considering Spaceport Colorado as a candidate for HTHL operations with their Lynx rocketplane. However, XCOR announced in July 2012 that they would be moving their company headquarters and R&D activities to Texas, in part due to a significant set of financial incentives (US$10,000,000) offered to XCOR by the Midland Development Corporation (MDC) and the Midland City Council.
As of April 2012, Colorado state law now "grants limited liability to spaceflight companies, allowing spaceflight participants who sign waiver forms to sue only if they are injured or killed as a result of a firm’s 'willful or wanton disregard' for safety."
Read more about this topic: Front Range Airport