www.soltimes.com
SOLTIMES MAY 2013
Spaniard to design US-based ‘space airport’
A Spanish architect is in the process of designing a ‘space’ airport which will make it possible to cover long-haul flights in under two hours. Luis Vidal, 44, from Barcelona, is waiting for a licence to build the airport-space station in Colorado, USA, which he says will take a few months to come through. Once the airport is up and running, planes taking off will go up much higher – into space – and then come back down on a different continent. The height and distance will mean that the Earth appears much smaller whilst in flight, and the longitude covered will be greater than if flying at a lower level, Vidal explains. He won a competition to enable him to design the space port in conjunction with North American engineering firm HDR, along with his own firm, Luis Vidal + Arquitectos (LVA), beating nearly 80 other firms when entries were taken two years ago. It will take a year to design the space port, for which he will first need official approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to turn the existing Front Range airport in Colorado into a space centre. Vidal wants to bring back the ‘excitement’ and ‘romantic nature’ of travelling by air which was present when planes first began to carry commercial passengers, now that flying has become routine and almost mundane in the same way as catching a bus or train. He is striking out into the unknown, since there is no existing project or installation to base the new airport-space centre on. The terminal will have to be ‘somewhere comfortable and inviting’ since it will be ‘the gateway to another continent’ and ‘should leave good memories behind’. It will include a flight simulation centre,
museum, visitor centre, pilot training academy, and children’s activities in a bid to revive the fascination for flying that society lost decades ago, and ensure that ‘even if not every part of it is visitable, it should at least be visible’. The project will be developed in three phases – the first involving space tourist trips which take off from and land in the same airport: “Go up, see the earth as a blue marble, and go back down again.” Then the second phase will involve experimental flights, with laboratories to study the effects of zero gravity, and the third will be commercial intercontinental flights. The whole thing should be open for business within about five years, Vidal reveals. “After taking off, the planes will leave the Earth’s atmosphere and go up into space and, taking advantage of the rotation and angle of their re-entrance to Earth, will be able to link up two points of the planet in a very short time, such as a couple of hours,” the architect explains. He does not even believe it will take long before such flights are considered ‘routine’. “If you take into account the speed of technological development in the last few years on the internet, where in a very short time giant leaps have been made that once would have taken centuries, it does not have to be long before space flights become a normality,” says the inventor. “All five continents need to get cracking on this to be ready for the future.” Vidal is confident about securing ‘public and private’ sponsorship, since “building such facilities needs this kind of cooperation to succeed.”
Iberia causes quarterly losses to soar for IAG
International Airline Group (IAG) has announced huge losses due to troubles with Iberia wiping out British Airways’ success. The company which owns both the UK-based and Spanish airlines says its net loss in the first quarter of 2012 was 129 million euros, but in the same period this year has rocketed to 630 million euros. Iberia’s restructuring cost the company over three million euros, given that the Spain-based carrier is facing financial troubles as a result of the ongoing recession and losing business to low-cost airlines. And cost-cutting measures imposed by IAG on Iberia, which included the loss of 3,000 jobs, were what has led to a series of strikes
over the past year by pilots, cabin crew and ground staff, costing Iberia millions of euros on each day they took place. But CEO Willie Walsh said the losses made were not due to falling passenger numbers – in fact, income from air travellers rose by 3.9 per cent, reaching 3.34 billion. Also, a rise in first-class and business-class passengers meant British Airways was in profit in the first three months of 2013. IAG’s immediate plans include a takeover of Spanish low-cost airline Vueling, of which the firm already owns 46 per cent and which will carry on running under its own name, and to buy 18 Airbus 350s and 18 Boeing Dreamliners for BA to replace its older planes.
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