January 6, 2012
Florida Times Union

BUSINESS OF SPACE

Bring it to Cecil

Cecil Field is the ideal location for satellite manufacturing and launches.

When I met with Florida’s Commerce secretary, Gray Swoope, I explained to him that no state had the monopoly on building small satellites and why horizontal launches should be held at Cecil.

I applaud Swoope for taking his job seriously and jumping on this opportunity. Recently, Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll partnered a deal with Spain to manufacture small satellites and execute launches in Florida.

Here are the reasons why Cecil should be on the negotiations table as a viable and better location:

- Executing horizontal launches at Cecil and vertical launches at Kennedy Space Center would allow for increased capacity of launches since both could be executed simultaneously.

- Due to heavy air traffic flow in and out of the Orlando and Miami airports, horizontal launches released from Kennedy cause potential conflicts with commercial airliners. Cecil — located north — would be safer.

- Cecil received its Spaceport Certification recently and was backup runway to the Space Shuttle (over 12,000 feet long.)

- Cecil has over 17,000 acres of industrial parks – with standing infrastructure that was built to military safety standards. Locating the satellite-manufacturing center at Cecil would cost less to the state.

Using Cecil as well as Kennedy Space Center brings more proponents and jobs statewide. This is necessary if we are to bring space exploration back to Florida where it needs to be! I’m not about to leave space exploration to the Russians or the Chinese.

If you would like to build support for Cecil Field as a viable option for space industry opportunities, please send an email to Sen. Stephen Wise at wise.stephen.web@flsenate.gov.

Kim J. Kendall, St. Augustine

Source: http://bit.ly/y2LMUE