Space travel is just up the road, best case

Perhaps you read this week that Gov. Bob McDonnell was in Washington and said something about space and Virginia.

And like me, you said, yeah-yeah-yeah, blah-blah-blah: lemme know when I can take an exit from I-264 directly to Jupiter, Neptune or Uranus.

I understand the disinterest. McDonnell called for more investment in Virginia's space-launch facilities, specifically at Wallops Island on the Eastern Shore. He used words like "infrastructure."

There are more pressing issues - jobs - but it's still hard not to be excited about anything having to do with space: space travel, space wars, space aliens.

McDonnell referred to a fairly new report from the Performance Management Group at Virginia Commonwealth University. It is full of nuance, long-long-long-term plans and words like "suborbital." The report promoted Virginia as a viable landing spot for space businesses.

Great, except a key element of this story has been largely ignored:

You want to visit space.

State leaders believe, in a best-case scenario, that tourists will be lining up to leave Earth's gravity from the Eastern Shore in the next 15 to 20 years. Start packing.

Sure, the plan sounds far-fetched, an inconceivable trip for skeptics already doubtful that an Amtrak train will ever leave Harbor Park.

But the idea is not a pipe dream, like hoping Pluto once again will become a planet.

When he was running for governor in 2009, McDonnell on his website touted Virginia as a potential hub for space tourism.

"He understands the value of our hospitality industry and fully intends to promote our Commonwealth to 'space lovers,' " the site read.

McDonnell the candidate called for "an aggressive coordinated effort... to promote the tourism component of the spaceport."

Today, according to the VCU study, the commonwealth is a leader, along with California, New Mexico and Florida, in the new competition for space dollars. Last week, the state sponsored a meeting so aerospace business executives could say what they wanted from Virginia in terms of space infrastructure.

The majority of the companies assembled, said Secretary of Transportation Sean Connaughton, are hoping to make their name in space tourism.

Connaughton said that within a decade, Virginia, and specifically Wallops Island, hopes to be the leader in small- to mid-sized payload launches of satellites and other cargo. Within the next 15 to 20 years, he sees Wallops and its surroundings as a "junior space city" full of tourists watching launches or taking flight.

"A real, vital and dynamic spaceport on the Eastern Shore," he said during a phone interview from D.C.

As early as this summer, he's hoping for viewing stands, more parking lots, even simple amenities like enough bathrooms, for a launch at Wallops that will carry materials to the International Space Station.

For space geeks and those with even a hint of curiosity about what lies beyond this world, it's a fascinating development.

A McDonnell spokesman has said the governor hopes to engage the public in a dialogue about Virginia and the space industry in the next year.

It's one thing to talk about infrastructure and capital and cargo in gray-suited Washington. But to make clear that the investment would take us from the bridge-tunnel, up Va. 13 and into space will require skewing the discussion another way.

When do we leave and what should we pack?

Mike Gruss, 757-446-2277, mike.gruss@pilotonline.com, pilotonline.com/gruss