By Tsai Yun-jung and Esme Yeh \/ Staff reporter, with staff writer<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Houston First Corp, which manages city-owned properties for Houston, Texas, yesterday said it had contacted the government over the feasibility of introducing a spaceport to Taiwan.<\/p>\n
The US has been developing spaceport technology and seeking opportunities to commercialize it and build an industry.<\/p>\n
The Houston Spaceport at Ellington Airport is a federally licensed commercial facility for launching and landing suborbital vehicles. It is also a hub for commercial aerospace and aviation companies, as well as a science park for academic, government and private research and development, with tenants such as NASA and Axiom Space.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/P02-250714-004.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Photo courtesy of Houston Airport System <\/p>\n
Houston First said it contacted Taiwan because it is indispensable to research and development for US companies.<\/p>\n
Suborbital commercial spaceflight can reduce the 13-to-16-hour flight from Houston to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport to two-and-a-half hours, it said, adding that it had exchanged ideas about spaceport applications with government agencies in charge of technology and the American Institute in Taiwan.<\/p>\n
The government is still reviewing the information and no plans for a spaceport have been initiated, it said.<\/p>\n
Suborbital flight from a spaceport involves an aircraft taking off from a runway carrying a spacecraft, which would detach to fly to an altitude that is considered space, a Houston City Government official said.<\/p>\n
The spacecraft would then adjust toward its destination before re-entering the atmosphere in freefall and flying to land at the destination airport, they said.<\/p>\n
A spaceport requires appropriate airport facilities, an air traffic control system, aircraft manufacturing capabilities and logistical support, they said.<\/p>\n
That includes sufficient weight-bearing capacity of airport runways and space-based communications, the official said.<\/p>\n
Based on current technology, spacecraft are launched to conduct experiments and would first be used to transport goods, as the problem of significant drag force on people riding in such a craft must be resolved to carry passengers, they said.<\/p>\n
A source with knowledge of the matter said that other US authorities have informally explored the idea with the Taiwan Space Agency at international events.<\/p>\n
Given the launch and landing speeds, cargo delivery is more feasible than transporting passengers without training, they said.<\/p>\n
Although the cost of suborbital flight would initially be high, it could be lowered if a common and reusable vehicle is developed, the source said.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year, the National Science and Technology Council announced it had chosen Jiupeng Village (\u4e5d\u68da) in Pingtung County\u2019s Manjhou Township (\u6eff\u5dde) as Taiwan\u2019s national space mission launch site.<\/p>\n
Although the site\u2019s current operations focus on launching spacecraft, it has the potential to be expanded into a spaceport, the source said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"RIDING HIGH: The National Science and Technology Council\u2019s planned space mission launch site could one day be expanded…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":263403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3844],"tags":[70,413,17260,16,15,17259],"class_list":{"0":"post-263402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-the-taipei-times","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-17259"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114849882711036027","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=263402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/263403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}