Across the Karman Line: Group Wants Liverpool Spaceport

John Lennon once sang about traveling across the universe. Now, a group wants to create a spaceport at the Liverpool airport named after the Beatles co-founder to allow people to fly across the Karman Line and across the ocean at high speeds.

The group, unhappy with the remoteness of the 8 candidate sites identified by the government for the site of Britain’s spaceport, have begun a campaign to Liverpool John Lennon Airport to the list.

According to the group’s website:

Liverpool John Lennon Airport is the perfect candidate for the UK’s Spaceport.

It’s 2,285m runway faces 5,000m of heavily silted river estuary; our proposal makes provisions for a small peninsula to be constructed, extending 1,265m, little over a fifth of the river’s width, to provide the extra length needed. In this regard, Peel Holdings have already conducted an extensive study on doubling the runway’s width and extending inland by 150m. This would result in a 3,700m runway; an ample length to accept the next several generations of air launch vehicles and spaceplanes.

The banks of the Mersey alone are home to the heavy industry and skills base required for a Spaceport; from heavy manufacturing at Cammell Laird, Jaguar Land Rover and Vauxhall, to the chemical handling at Eastham and the bulk handling skills of the docks.

Our investigations are proving that Liverpool is the obvious choice for the UK’s spaceport due to the following:

•  the existing transport infrastructure
• the existing industrial and skills base
• the relative ease by which the site could expanded.

The moment it is completed, a Spaceport at Liverpool John Lennon Airport would tap directly into the life blood of the city, the UK, the EU and beyond, without any additional infrastructure.