Texas State Tech's College's Spaceport Ambitions, in Photos

By Joe Griffin

Tuesday, January 17, 2017 at 4:11 a.m.

Joe Griffin TSTC Airport in Waco aspires to become a spaceport. 1/20

Google Earth The view of Texas State Technical College Airport from above. 2/20

Joe Griffin The airport's air traffic control tower, which handles 101,000 takeoffs and landings a year. 3/20

Joe Griffin The view from the tower. 4/20

Joe Griffin Kevon Dorton, airport manager. 5/20

Joe Pappalardo The TSTC bookstore sells tools, aeronautical charts and a slew of shirts showing some of the trades taught here. 6/20

Joe Griffin Science education is a main priority when it comes to attracting aerospace companies, so TSTC established a space learning center on its Waco campus. 7/20

FAA This map shows Texas has the most FAA- designated spaceports in the nation. 8/20

Joe Griffin A T-1 trainer takes off in the hands of an Air Force trainee. 9/20

Joe Griffin L-3 Technologies upgrades military airplanes, like these submarine hunters, at the TSTC airfield. 10/20

Joe Griffin Another look at that T-1. The crew parked to get lunch in Waco. 11/20

Google Earth L-3's facilities at TSTC airport include defense and civilian aerospace work, both of which are visible from this satellite image. 12/20

Joe Griffin Hangar space means business at an airport. An empty hangar costs money, a filled one brings revenue to the airport and jobs for the county. 13/20

Joe Griffin TSTC is a general aviation airport, so a mix of planes land there. 14/20

Joe Griffin 15/20

Joe Griffin Dorton is a hands-on manager; he sometimes clears the debris off the runway himself. 16/20

Virgin Galactic Best known for its plans to put tourists into sub-orbital spaceplanes, Virgin Galactic also wants to launch satellites from airplanes. Work on this project is being done in Waco — a sign of things to come? 17/20

SNS Corp. The DreamChaser spaceplane launches on a rocket but lands like an airplane. These types of craft one day may need a spaceport to land. 18/20

Courtesy Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic's mothership ferries a spaceplane to a high altitude before releasing it for a flight into space. 19/20

Courtesy Virgin Galactic A spaceplane in flight. Most of a spaceplane's operation mirrors conventional flight, familiar to any airport. 20/20

Texas State Tech's College's Spaceport Ambitions, in Photos

The Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce and Texas State Technical College (TSTC), which hired the consultant for nearly $200,000 to analyze the possibility of creating a spaceport at the school's airport. In late December, a draft of the study found the airport's infrastructure could handle the operation of airplanes that launch space rockets or some spaceplanes that can use their own onboard engines to blast into space. The runway could also handle spaceplanes that launched elsewhere and need a place to land.

The designation of Waco's technical college as a spaceport would be the latest in a string of high-profile efforts to make Texas the epicenter of the commercial space industry. Here's a closer look at the airport with cosmic aspirations, and (at the end) some existing space planes and in-flight launch schemes that could one day find a home there.

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