Sheboygan: Not just for bratwurst anymore?

Houston. Cape Canaveral. Sheboygan?

Some lawmakers are pushing a bill that would clear the way for the east-central Wisconsin city - known more for bratwurst than space exploration - to establish a launch and landing area for spacecraft.

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The legislation would create the Wisconsin Aerospace Authority, charged with developing a business plan for spaceport-related commercial and educational development in the state and attracting and keeping space-related businesses in Wisconsin.

Businesses connected to the space program, including some in the Madison area, are squarely behind the idea. Supporters contend it could foster more discoveries in the high technology community and keep young people from leaving the state to pursue opportunities elsewhere.

"It's good for those of us that are in the aerospace community here in the state," said Marty Gustafson, commercial applications manager for Madison companies PLANET LLC and ORBITEC. "It's not just something that happens in Texas and Florida and California. There are companies that are working very hard with NASA right now and trying really hard to get more aerospace business into our state."

ORBITEC, short for Orbital Technologies Corporation, is a research and development firm that has developed spaceflight hardware programs. PLANET LLC develops ORBITEC's technologies into new commercial products for research.

The space authority would not be a state agency but would be tax exempt and eligible for federal funding. The governor and legislative leaders would appoint a nine-member board to guide the enterprise, with all members required to have experience in aerospace, education, finance or related fields.

Wisconsin is not the only state trying to get a piece of aerospace action.

Oklahoma and Montana, among other states, are making efforts to establish spaceports. More recently, British entrepreneur Richard Branson chose New Mexico as the site to launch Virgin Galactic, the first company to develop commercial flights to space, expected to begin in 2008.

The economic possibilities are what piqued the interest of Sen. Joe Leibham, R-Sheboygan, the bill's author. He contends the space tourism industry could generate $1 billion a year by 2020.

But some also see the spaceport as an educational opportunity for Wisconsin's aspiring astronauts, scientists and entrepreneurs.

The proposed spaceport site along the shore of Lake Michigan, already located in restricted airspace, is used for a program that allows students to build and launch rockets as well as design science experiments to send up on high-altitude balloons.

"Students from across the state have been doing this. They're excited and oftentimes they come to me and say 'What's next?'" said R. Aileen Yingst, director of the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, which sponsors the student projects. "I don't want to have to send these kids to Florida.

"We have brilliant students who are just begging for more and I want to be able to let them go as far as they can here, because most of them want to stay here."

Yingst, who would sit on the proposed space authority's board, said the spaceport would allow Wisconsin students to design and launch satellites meant to go into low Earth orbit and prepare them for the more advanced work of building satellites to go to the moon or Mars.

"To me, this is an extraordinarily important thing for the high technology advancement of Wisconsin," she said "That's the economy. That's education. That's everything."

NASA operates federal spaceports that conduct both commercial and government launches; non-federal commercial spaceports must be licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration and get approval from the Department of Environmental Protection.

There are five commercial spaceports licensed nationwide: at Cape Canaveral in Florida; the Virginia Space Flight Center; the Mojave Airport and Vandenberg Air Force Base in California; and the Kodiak Launch Complex in Alaska.