Tax Incentives for Job Creation as an Element of Financing for New Space Vehicle Development

Paper number

IAC-08.E6.2.8

Author

Mr. Charles Lauer, Rocketplane Global, Inc., United States

Year

2008

Abstract

There are now many competing vehicle development companies in the finance marketplace attempting to each raise many millions – in some cases hundred of millions – in private capital to build a new generation of reusable spacecraft.  Perhaps a dozen vehicle companies are at least at the Angel Stage of investment and a handful are well beyond this stage.  There are probably another dozen start-ups with viewgraph presentations but no hardware or investment also scrambling for early stage investment.

Rocketplane Global (RpG) is one of the leading new suborbital spaceplane development and operations companies, based in Oklahoma City, OK.  The XP spaceplane is a horizontal takeoff and landing vehicle which uses conventional afterburning turbojets for takeoff and landing operations and a LOX / kerosene rocket engine for the ascent to space.  The home base for RpG is the Oklahoma Spaceport, which has been developed by the Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority (OSIDA) from a former USAF B-52 Strategic Air Command base in western Oklahoma.

A unique strategy for RpG has been to use conventional terrestrial economic development techniques to raise significant amounts of private capital while leveraging public sector job creation and tax incentives.  The multiplier effect of these programs can be very powerful.  Having a public sector development partner who in effect becomes an stakeholder in the venture also provides comfort and assurance to the private sector investors and makes the overall capitalization of the project easier to accomplish.

This paper will present a case study of the various job creation and tax incentives that RpG has employed over the last five years in its investment and capitalization strategy.  Lessons learned from this experience will be presented, along with policy recommendations for expanding and enhancing these economic development tools to encourage additional investment in new low cost launch systems.

Abstract document

IAC-08.E6.2.8.pdf

Manuscript document

IAC-08.E6.2.8.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).

To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.