DEVELOPMENT OF A LAND USE, PLANNING AND ARCHITECTURAL VOCABULARY FOR COMMERCIAL SPACEPORT PROJECTS

摘要

The transition from government driven to commercially driven spaceport development is just beginning. Duringthe last 50 years of the human spaceflight era the predominant driver has been government programs – first as anartifact of the Cold War and later as an element of National Pride. In this mode, the selection of spaceport locationsand the architectural environment created at these locations has been almost completely utilitarian and void of anyelements of style or architectural expression. Now that commercial market forces are beginning to enter the arena ofhuman spaceflight (both suborbital and orbital) the drivers that influence the planning, architectural and aestheticexpression of the built environment are dramatically changing. The first driver being changed is at the planninglevel – the decision matrix influencing WHERE commercial spaceports should be developed. The defaultgovernment planning driver has been to locate spaceports far away from urban areas on vast tracts of land withessentially no population or existing built environment. New commercial spaceports in contrast are being developedin and near major metropolitan areas in both the US and abroad, taking advantage of billions in existinginfrastructure and tourism development as well as tapping the market power of existing global tourist destinations.The physical, architectural and stylistic expression of these new commercial spaceport projects will be completelydifferent from the first generation of government developed spaceports because the fundamental market drivers aretotally different. This paper will examine planning, design and aesthetic trends in new spaceport projects in the US,Europe and Asia and how the functional aspects of working commercial spaceports are interwoven with massmarket tourism and visitor center projects which are co-located at these developments. New elements of aestheticexpression will be compared to previous fantasy-based space theme tourism developments as well as currentoperations such as the KSC Visitor's Center to highlight the principal design drivers and aesthetics of the nextgeneration of commercial spaceport projects.