Houston's Spaceport, a project to connect the city to the heavens, is moving ahead with its development after losing a manufacturing facility connected with Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos.
The spaceport is looking for other opportunities with aerospace and aviation companies as it moves into Phase 1, Houston Airport System spokesman Bill Begley said in an emailed statement. In June, the spaceport lost a bid for Bezos' Blue Origin project, which decided to manufacture its BE-4 engine in Huntsville, Alabama.
Bezos' BE-4 is a rocket engine aimed at powering Americans into space while lessening the nation’s need for Russia to access the heavens, according to a release.
"This is not a stopping point," Begley said in an emailed statement. "Our focus is on not only the development of the Houston Spaceport project, but also the continued support and development of the commercial aerospace and aviation industries (in Houston)."
The first phase of the spaceport project is to connect companies with its 53,000-square-foot feet Houston Aerospace Support Center, according to the spaceport's website. The spaceport is looking for firms involved with industries such as space tourism, space vehicle assembly and zero-gravity scientific and medical experiments.
In June 2015, the Federal Aviation Administration granted a launch site license to make Ellington Airport the 10th commercial spaceport in the U.S.