Jacksonville airport licensed to fly space vehicles
Space tourists and researchers could soon be flocking to Cecil Field airport in Jacksonville, Florida, which was awarded a federal license to fly commercial space vehicles this week. The Jacksonville Aviation Authority spent four years working on getting the license and plans to offer its runway, one of Florida’s biggest, to providers like Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, which is selling tickets to space for $200,000 per seat. Virgin Galactic is building its own base in New Mexico, but the Cecil Field already has facilities in place. It’s now the eighth licensed commercial spaceport in the U.S.—the first in Florida—cleared to fly space vehicles that take off and land horizontally, like airplanes.