Uploaded January 2021 | Updated September 2026, 5 hours ago
United Launch Alliance. Sierra Nevada Corporation. Reaction Engines. Virgin Galactic. I visit some of the up and coming companies involved in commercial space travel!
Time for another epic #roadtrip. This time I'm visiting the destinations that have quickly become the most important for America's near future in space travel, The darkest skies, and some quirky space history.
Behind the scenes and all over the United States, there are many scientific programs, engineering, assembly and manufacturing locations working on #space exploration, surveillance, earth science, or space based communications. This is not by accident. As the US space program really began to take shape in the 1960's, with that was born a jobs program and a way to spur economic growth all around the United States. However after the end of the Space shuttle program and the birth of commercial access to space, New locations, companies, jobs and destinations for space travel have sprung up. Curiously, these up and coming destinations have started to cluster around #Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas.
I'm going to call this the Commercial Space Belt. It's a more consumer and business oriented space program, it's privatized, but a much more hands-on world than that of the traditional space programs.
Our journey begins in Boulder, CO home of NOAA's Space-weather Prediction Center. The SWPC does offer a couple of tours every year and you can bet I'll back to do so once things open back up!
Two big players in the commercial space industry are headquartered in the Denver area. United Launch Alliance and Sierra Nevada Corporation. ULA is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and soon, Aerojet Rocketdyne as well as a merger was just recently announced between the latter. I discuss Starliner/Atlas V, SLS, and Vulcan. As well as the Dreamchaser Spaceplane!
It doesn't even stop there, the United Kingdom based company, Reaction Engines is working on an airbreathing spaceplane system called Skylon, that can launch and land at a runway.
But Denver is actually chock full of other aerospace companies, Space based communications, Satellite construction like the GOES weather satellites for NOAA, and many others. Colorado recognizes this spaceflight heritage; as well as it's future, at the Wings over the Rockies Air and Space museum. In it you can visit a dream chaser space plane, and also explore the Titan missile program.
The Titan rocket family was used for everything from nuclear weapons defense on up to the Cassini Huygens mission to Saturn.
Lockheed Martin Space continues to expand its capabilities in the Denver area. A large number of satellites and space probes were built right here, or will be in the future as it expects to soon be one of the most prolific manufacturers in the world of space bound hardware.
Next we take a long drive through the amazing I25 corridor along the front range of the Rockies, into the Rio Grande Valley and Raton Pass. Santa Fe, Albuquerque and finally into south central New Mexico where an exciting new spaceport has just taken shape.
It begins nearly 20 years ago with Burt Rutan's vision of an air-launched Spaceplane that can reach the edge of space.
What was created by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites was SpaceShipOne and the WhiteKnight carrier plane.
Burt Rutan, Scaled Composites, and it's new sponser/investor, Richard Branson's Virgin did it twice and the team won the 10 million dollar Xprise. From this a new partnership and a new company were born. Virgin Galactic.
United Launch Alliance. Sierra Nevada Corporation. Reaction Engines. Virgin Galactic. I visit some of the up and coming companies involved in commercial space travel!
Time for another epic #roadtrip. This time I'm visiting the destinations that have quickly become the most important for America's near future in space travel, The darkest skies, and some quirky space history.
Behind the scenes and all over the United States, there are many scientific programs, engineering, assembly and manufacturing locations working on #space exploration, surveillance, earth science, or space based communications. This is not by accident. As the US space program really began to take shape in the 1960's, with that was born a jobs program and a way to spur economic growth all around the United States. However after the end of the Space shuttle program and the birth of commercial access to space, New locations, companies, jobs and destinations for space travel have sprung up. Curiously, these up and coming destinations have started to cluster around #Colorado, New Mexico, and Texas.
I'm going to call this the Commercial Space Belt. It's a more consumer and business oriented space program, it's privatized, but a much more hands-on world than that of the traditional space programs.
Our journey begins in Boulder, CO home of NOAA's Space-weather Prediction Center. The SWPC does offer a couple of tours every year and you can bet I'll back to do so once things open back up!
Two big players in the commercial space industry are headquartered in the Denver area. United Launch Alliance and Sierra Nevada Corporation. ULA is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, and soon, Aerojet Rocketdyne as well as a merger was just recently announced between the latter. I discuss Starliner/Atlas V, SLS, and Vulcan. As well as the Dreamchaser Spaceplane!
It doesn't even stop there, the United Kingdom based company, Reaction Engines is working on an airbreathing spaceplane system called Skylon, that can launch and land at a runway.
But Denver is actually chock full of other aerospace companies, Space based communications, Satellite construction like the GOES weather satellites for NOAA, and many others. Colorado recognizes this spaceflight heritage; as well as it's future, at the Wings over the Rockies Air and Space museum. In it you can visit a dream chaser space plane, and also explore the Titan missile program.
The Titan rocket family was used for everything from nuclear weapons defense on up to the Cassini Huygens mission to Saturn.
Lockheed Martin Space continues to expand its capabilities in the Denver area. A large number of satellites and space probes were built right here, or will be in the future as it expects to soon be one of the most prolific manufacturers in the world of space bound hardware.
Next we take a long drive through the amazing I25 corridor along the front range of the Rockies, into the Rio Grande Valley and Raton Pass. Santa Fe, Albuquerque and finally into south central New Mexico where an exciting new spaceport has just taken shape.
It begins nearly 20 years ago with Burt Rutan's vision of an air-launched Spaceplane that can reach the edge of space.
What was created by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites was SpaceShipOne and the WhiteKnight carrier plane.
Burt Rutan, Scaled Composites, and it's new sponser/investor, Richard Branson's Virgin did it twice and the team won the 10 million dollar Xprise. From this a new partnership and a new company were born. Virgin Galactic.
