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SpaceX To Build Commercial Launch Site in Texas


The space exploration company Space X will build a commercial rocket launch site in Texas- not Florida as local space advocates had hoped

Texas Governor Rick Perry announced Monday his state will offer $2.3Million in incentives to SpaceX to build the facility in Cameron County.

Florida industry advocates say they were expecting the announcement- but they are still disappointed.

Dale Ketcham is the chief of Strategic Alliances at Space Florida, the state’s economic development agency for space exploration.

“We understand why they’re going to Texas," says Ketcham,

"Because if you’re going to be competing in a global marketplace particularly with the Chinese and the Russians and the Europeans and others, you need to have as clean and friendly a business model as you can come up with."

Ketcham says the best Florida could offer were locations under the jurisdiction of NASA and the airforce station.

That did not meet Space X’s requirements.

Ketcham says he hopes this is the last commercial Space business lost from Florida.

 

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