Ohio's awkward path to orbit
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O-H-SKY-O. Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
After celebrating our meaningful and whimsical contributions to aerospace via Ohio Space Week, we were left wondering if the state could actually launch a rocket from here.
Why it matters: As the birthplace of aviation, Ohio knows a thing or two about taking flight and overcoming scientific obstacles. Why not join Florida and Texas as a rocket launch site?
Technically, yes we can. Practically? Ohio, we have a problem.
🚀 The big problem: We're surrounded.
- The biggest challenge isn't technical know-how or even Ohio's distance from the equator, which can affect launch efficiency.
- It's range safety, says Wilson Dhalwani, student president of Ohio State's Buckeye Space Launch Initiative.
- Orbital launches need flight paths that keep the risk from falling stages or debris acceptably low for people, aircraft and vessels below. That's something the FAA evaluates as part of launch licensing.
From Ohio, Dhalwani tells us, plausible trajectories eventually encounter populated U.S. territory or Canada.
- That means Cincinnati is out, with residential land in virtually every direction.
🌊 Lake Erie feels promising, and Northern Ohio already has serious space connections.
- NASA's Neil Armstrong Test Facility near Sandusky conducts ground testing of spacecraft and rocket technology, including full-scale upper-stage vehicles and engines under simulated high-altitude conditions.
💰 Money-no-object scenario: Dhalwani says Ohio could engineer its way around many of these challenges.
- It would simply need launch infrastructure, safety systems, FAA authorization and environmental review — and potentially international cooperation.
- Easy peasy, several-billion-dollar squeezy.
The bottom line: Existing coastal launch sites have one amenity Ohio can't build: an ocean in the right place.
- Ohio makes much more sense for suborbital, high-altitude and small-scale rocketry, Dhalwani says — particularly university and R&D work.