Adams County has been awarded the 11th spaceport in the United States by the Federal Aviation Administration.

The currently existing Front Range Airport, south of Denver International Airport will now be known as the Colorado Air and Space Port.

Before you go thinking this will open up Colorado to more alien visitation, that's not what this is about.

What opening the spaceport will do is allow vehicles that require horizontal takeoffs and landings, like the space shuttle to take off and land in Colorado.

Technology, always moving forward, will allow for future vehicles to briefly go into space before re-entering the atmosphere and landing at their destination. Which means, at some point in the near future you will be able to go from Colorado to Japan in three hours. And it will make any point on the globe more readily accessible.

The FAA took 180 days to determine the viability of the spaceport, concerned with flight patterns from Denver International Airport as well as local crop-dusters and the "sonic booms" from vehicles leaving or entering the atmosphere.

Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic has used the spaceport in New Mexico for his takeoffs and landings.

Now that they have been granted the license, Adams County officials state it will be years before the spaceport becomes fully operational.

But Colorado has taken the next, bold step into the 21st century and the future of aviation!

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