While the Sunday night launch of the SpaceX Dragon crew took place at Kennedy Space Center in Florida, the head of Oklahoma’s Spaceport, Craig Smith remains optimistic some space launches will eventually take place in western Oklahoma.
He was excited about the weekend launch that sent four astronauts to the international space station where they arrived late Monday night.
“Revolutionary companies like Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin, and Elon Musk’s SpaceX with that spectacular launch this weekend, are forging new and exciting pathways to space that weren’t even fathomable in 1999,” said Smith in an emailed statement to OK Energy Today.
He said it was the same year that Oklahoma leaders saw the potential and took a giant leap by putting Oklahoma into a Top 10 category and creating one of the first licensed spaceports in the nation.
“Since not all launches require vertical rockets, Oklahoma is established and stands poised and ready for whatever the future of spaceflight holds,” stated Smith, whose official title is Executive Director of the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority headquartered at Burns Flat.
It was around 10 p.m. Oklahoma time on Monday when astronauts Michael Hopkins, Victor Glover and Shannon Walker with NASA, and Soichi Noguchi, an astronaut with Japan’s space agency — emerged from their capsule. It came after they spent two hours ensuring their spacecraft and the ISS had an air-tight seal.
They were greeted by NASA astronaut Kate Rubins and Russia’s Sergey Ryzhikov and Sergey Kud-Sverchkov who were on board the ISS awaiting their arrival.