Saturday, Jan 28 2012 05:00 PM

Mojave becoming aerospace epicenter

BY STEVEN MAYER Californian staff writer

MOJAVE AIR & SPACE PORT -- Aerospace types love this rural desert location for its clear, dry weather, its sparse population and its comfortable distance from major news outlets.

But Dave Masten, CEO of Masten Space Systems, says there's another reason his company stays in Mojave.

"The neighbors don't complain," Masten says with a grin.

"Even if you're testing a rocket engine," he says. "And rocket tests can be very loud."

Long known as a place where space cowboys and scientist-entrepreneurs could carve out a niche in the specialized world of aviation and aerospace, Mojave Air & Space Port has grown -- some might say grown up -- in recent years to include ambitious, well-funded companies that are expected to deliver on the promise that the sky is no longer the limit when it comes to private space flight.

"Mojave is the premier place for civilian flight research and testing in the United States," says Jeff Greason, chief executive of XCOR Aerospace, a Mojave-based company focused on the research, development and production of reusable launch vehicles and rocket propulsion systems.

DIVERSIFICATION

Greason calls Mojave "the Silicon Valley of the private space industry."

But the success of the 3,300-acre airport as an economic hot spot, even in the midst of a global economic cooldown, can be attributed to more than aerospace activities. Light industry and manufacturing, renewable energy and service industry tenants have combined with the higher-tech firms to bring steadiness and diversity to the airport's humming economy.

An agency selling life insurance may not be as sexy as a rocket shop developing a private space shuttle or a lunar lander, but air & space port CEO and General Manager Stu Witt is happy to welcome both to the mix.

Aerospace represents about half of Mojave's business, a significantly larger percentage than a few years ago, Witt says. But like any healthy investment portfolio, diversification has proved a major asset for the facility.

When Witt came to Mojave nearly 10 years ago, the airport had about 14 business tenants generating a few hundred jobs.

Today there are more than 65 tenants and close to 2,500 jobs, with more coming.

Kern County Supervisor Zack Scrivner, whose 2nd District includes Mojave, said the prevailing attitude at the space port has been critical to its success.

"The attitude is to give people the freedom to fail or succeed," Scrivner says. "People are proud of what's going on out there.

"You can hear about it. You can read about it," he adds. "But seeing it is one step beyond."

Witt, a graduate of the Navy's "TOPGUN" program -- he flew the F-14 Tomcat and the F/A-18 Hornet -- is thrilled by the progress he's charted in Mojave. But there's a wariness beneath the surface, a concern that forces beyond his control could stick a pin in the balloon.

"Every facility is filled, and we're building more," Witt says of the airport's 100 percent occupancy. "It's a good-news story but it could change overnight."

ONE GIANT LEAP FOR TOURISM?

As NASA cedes some of its former glory -- and funding -- to rocket scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs in the private sector, this tiny desert burg 60 miles east of Bakersfield may be on the cusp of history.

The Spaceship Company's September opening of a massive 68,000-square-foot production hangar in Mojave was a sign of the times.

The project reflected a multi-million-dollar commitment to doing business in eastern Kern County.

A joint venture between Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic and Mojave-based Scaled Composites, TSC and its hangar will support the production and assembly of Virgin's fleet of spaceships and the support aircraft they will use as flying launch platforms.

The fleet is designed to carry ordinary people into space at $200,000 a pop -- although those who can afford to cross this adventure off their bucket list may not be so ordinary, financially speaking.

Still, nearly 500 reservations have so far been made by people wishing to take that suborbital joyride, generating some $60 million in deposits. This is proof positive, Virgin officials say, that the market is real.

Heady stuff, indeed, building spaceships to carry accountants and stock brokers into the black ether of space.

Such a grand and complex endeavor may seem like an end in itself, but Virgin Galactic CEO George Whitesides says he and Branson have more in mind than space tourism.

Revolutionizing international air travel is just one possible innovation they hope will spring from the changes now taking place.

"What we aspire to is really changing the game of space," Whitesides says.

And Mojave Air & Space Port is at the epicenter of that change.

"Mojave is where personal spaceflight was born," Whitesides says, referring to the famed X Prize flights by SpaceShipOne in 2004.

Locating its production facility in close proximity to partner Scaled Composites was a must, the CEO says. But the business-friendly attitude at the airport and the airport district also went a long way towa