Midland's New Spaceport Aims to Make Space Travel Accessible to All

Drive down a windy, muddy road, hidden on the backside of Midland airport’s southernmost tarmac, and you’ll find a shiny new hangar and office building: XCOR Aerospace’s Texas headquarters.

Most people associate the Permian Basin with oil and gas. But some Midlanders are hoping to make the region synonymous with space travel. Two years ago, Midland’s airport became the first commercial airport also licensed for flights into space. Today, it’s called Midland International Air and Spaceport.

Midland Native and City Councilman J. Ross Lacy, president of the Spaceport Development Corporation, says this is just the beginning of a new era for the city.

“We are the only commercially operated air and spaceport in the world,” Lacy says. “We are the only one where you can fly in on Southwest but then also take off on a horizontal take off of a spacecraft. No other place in the world can say that.”

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