MIDLAND, Texas — A high-speed aerospace corridor is something the Midland Development Corporation is looking at creating between here and Spaceport America in New Mexico.
Basically, the corridor makes for a highway in the sky.
The infrastructure would allow companies and the Department of Defense to run experiments.
The highway in the sky would incentivize dozens of space companies to start up or move right here to the Basin.
But before the project launches, MDC has hired a company to study this region to see if something of this magnitude would be possible.
“If approved, a corridor would be licensed by the FAA for supersonic high-speed testing," Sara Harris, Midland Development Corporation director, said. "Currently, that sort of speed is not permitted over our air space. If the corridor is in place that sort of thing could occur.”
A highway in the sky sounds like something needed way into the future, but the need is here, happening in real-time.
There have already been multiple businesses that have expressed interest in coming to Midland if the corridor is approved.
“Midland Development Corporation has spoken to 13 space companies who have visited Midland, all of which are interested in utilizing a corridor like that for testing and development," Harris said. "If we had that to offer them they would be quite likely to bring tens, if not hundreds of millions of capital expenditure and hundreds of millions of new jobs.”
Before that can happen MDC has contracted Kimley Horn to research how the corridor would do here.
The study will wrap up by the end of this year. If it gives the green light, new companies could move here starting next year.
“It’s just a feasibility study. It does not establish the corridor, it lets us know if this is possible," Harris said.
In the meantime, MDC is planning a trip to Spaceport America in the next few weeks to advance the relationship between the two complimentary spaceports.
Harris tells me there are multiple projects in the works that would benefit the two, the corridor being one of them.