The Long Game

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Robert Long, a retired Space Force colonel, was hired last September as president and CEO of Space Florida, the state’s aerospace economic development arm. Long spent most of his military career in the U.S. Air Force. At Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, he commanded Space Launch Delta 30, which oversees the Western Launch and Test Range and is responsible for all space launch operations from the West Coast. He spoke with Florida Trend about continuing Space Florida’s emphasis on infrastructure and financial tools to attract aerospace companies, and about planning for a future in space that was once limited to the pages of science fiction.

FLORIDA TREND: Let’s start by discussing Space Florida’s role.

ROBERT LONG: Space Florida is the state’s aerospace finance and business development authority. Our charter is to grow the aerospace industry here across the entire state. We have two lines of business that support that mission, the first being our business development mission. That’s our work with companies to grow their business, mostly through our financial toolkit. But just encouraging companies to come to the state and grow.

When we talk about our almost $6-billion economic impact in the state, that’s largely due to that business development, industry growth role that we have. We also have what we call our spaceport authority role and that’s where we work closely with our partners at NASA and now the U.S. Space Force and, of course, the commercial industry as well to grow the spaceport ecosystem here in the state to make sure it continues to be the world leader in launch and space transportation.

FT: You came to this job after retiring from the Space Force.

LONG: I did. I retired last summer after 26 years, first in the Air Force before the Space Force stood up and then the last three years in the Space Force.

FT: What perspective did you bring to the job? What did you see developing in Florida, and what do you see as the needs to be addressed?

LONG: Just the growth in the commercial space industry. I feel like so many of the ideas and concepts that businesses had around 2000 and maybe a little before that — we’re seeing some of those concepts now become viable and come to fruition. Things like Starlink (SpaceX’s satellite internet constellation) regularly launching hopefully 100 times this year from Florida. Those things were all in the offing (or at least ideas) 20 years ago and now we get to see it come to fruition … That’s probably the biggest evolution that I saw over my time in the military — this gradual march to a commercial industry that was viable on its own. Looking forward, how do we continue to accelerate that?

FT: Why are total annual launches the metric that Space Force emphasizes?

LONG: It’s a straightforward way to track your pace. But we are starting to look at it more in terms of how much tonnage are we seeing go into orbit because in the big picture, space is just another mode of transportation and those are the kinds of equations other modes of transportation use to judge performance. I think over time we’re going to see similar types of metrics used to judge how efficient and how much through-put we have, let’s say, at the space port. And that’s where you can look at analogies with airports, for example, and numbers of passengers going through.

Over time, one of the things we’re going to look at from a Space Florida perspective is really understanding what the total capacity of our space transportation network is going to be, what it needs to be and then how do we go after building the infrastructure to support that capacity. Right now, while we’re very excited about 100 launches, it could be 200 in years ahead. Is that the right number and how many do we really need to support the broader industry to get the material or satellites or whatever it is to orbit? That’s the fundamental purpose of what we’re doing from a space transportation perspective.

FT: Let’s talk about infrastructure. The NASA Causeway over the Indian River is scheduled to be fully replaced next year. What else is needed as you look forward?

LONG: There’s a major processing facility in Titusville where satellites get ready to launch and integrated with a launch vehicle. Providing a secure way to get across the river is important to the entire flow of the launch itself. You have to look at similar kinds of infrastructure because that tends to be the chokepoint. Now we have to start looking at moving launch vehicles around on the roads: Do we have enough road network and capacity? We’re working on a wharf study right now to determine what’s the maritime component that is part of the overall cycle of launch ... and the challenges we see with returning boosters back through a seaport.

And then some of the basic things. Do you have enough power? Do you have enough wastewater capacity for all the workers? The great problem about how to grow is that the infrastructure must keep pace. It also speaks to a spaceport truly being multimodal when we talk about space transportation … Now it’s largely moving goods and services to space, but in the future it will be from space and then through space. You want to have that entire network considered in a true logistics approach.

Probably over the next year we need to update what’s called our Spaceport System Master Plan. The next step in that process is to look here at the Cape at what we call our critical node in the transportation network to make sure that it is solid. It is, for lack of a better word, our Suez Canal, our Panama Canal. It’s that transportation node that few other places in the world can support, so that has to be solid.

What we also want to do as we look at that master plan is look across the entire state, what we call our spaceport ecosystem, to determine whether we have all the pieces of a true network that can help build some resiliency into the network, that can continue to let the other components of the network, whether it’s a processing facility or a manufacturing facility, continue to grow without inhibiting the launch cadence.

FT: Is that where the focus on getting Homestead (Air Reserve Base) and Tyndall (Air Force Base) into the network comes in?

LONG: It does. Spaceport territory designations are already in place for Cape Canaveral, Space Coast Regional here in Titusville and Cecil Field and Eglin Air Force Base.

Spaceport territory designation … allows Space Florida to leverage all parts of the entire toolkit that we have at our disposal to help companies grow. When we looked across the state, Tyndall and Homestead are in strategic locations that might make sense in the future to provide some of that resilience to the network. We may need them, we may not. The idea in designating those is to provide some options for us as we start to plan for the future.

FT: When you talk about resilience in the network, what does that mean?

LONG: If you have all your eggs in one basket — satellite manufacturing, payload processing, fuel storage, ship storage and launchpads all in one place — and a hurricane comes through, we would recover but there would be a delay. What would make sense is to make sure that either we shore up all of our capabilities here locally — which is definitely something we would do and look to partner with NASA and the Space Force on. But at the same time, there are some smart things to do which would make sense for a company — maybe it makes sense for that company to base their manufacturing facility in Titusville, for example, where it’s just on the mainland.

We’ve thought through all of those options so that as companies come to us, we can say, what’s best for your business to grow? And they may want to be really close to a launchpad. Or they may say, I need to be somewhat close, and here are some options for you to consider. We want to make sure we don’t lose any business that would help us grow this network just because we didn’t have the best options for them.

FT: Would securing tax-exempt bond status help build some of that infrastructure in a way that’s more appealing to some of these companies?

LONG: That’s correct. We believe that tax-exempt bonds are one more piece in our financial toolkit that would be very appealing to the financial markets that will allow us to effectively help companies grow in a more effective way. It’s no different than an airport or a seaport can issue a tax-exempt bond. There’s no real difference there. It will help us — we hope, anyway — give another avenue or another means to invest in our infrastructure.

We’ve gotten great support from both the Senate side and the (House) side from the Florida delegation. (U.S.) Senator (Marco) Rubio — we’ve been working with his team on that. That language is in final draft right now, so we’re hoping we can get that wrapped up and provide whatever support we need as they work through this fiscal year ‘25 legislation.

FT: Is there anything that has been surprising to you in the time you’ve been in this job?

LONG: Just the depth of the tools that are available. I had a very surface-level understanding, especially of the financial tools that are available to Space Florida to leverage with our partners in industry. It really is clear how powerful they are to help companies really reduce the cost of capital on a long-term basis. I would also say the willingness and the ability to have that forward-looking vision and having great support across the state. Everybody that I talk to since coming into the job is very supportive of Space Florida. That’s a really good place to be when you’re trying to drive growth.

FT: Can you give a good example of those tools?

LONG: The main financial tool is called conduit financing, where we work with industry — companies looking to build a facility. We work with them on infrastructure that allows them to go to market and potentially get better rates. And then there’s some additional benefits because we’re a governmental independent special district. That provides some off-balance sheet financing.

FT: So the tax-exempt bond status would add another tool to that kit?

LONG: That’s correct. It would allow potentially more interest from the financial firms in the market, and with more interest, hopefully they can get better rates.

FT: What else would you like readers to know about Space Florida?

LONG: When we start to look into the future, the 10-plus-year time-frame, we definitely see growth in the market. We see significant demand in the aerospace industry — that’s not just in the space side of things but between emerging technologies like eVTOL, for example, plenty of MRO (maintenance, repair and operations) work going on at the same time, there’s no shortage of companies that are looking to Florida. So we’re definitely looking to scale to support that growth as much as possible.

We also have the great fortune of being able to be a little visionary. As I mentioned, there’s a to-space piece in that space transportation network and there’s a little bit of a from-space, too — capsules returning from the space station or other sized payloads returning, and obviously boosters landing. But there’s going to be sometime in the future where you’re going to have an in-space transportation and a through-space transportation — some sort of point-to-point transportation and moving things from lower-earth orbit to geo-stationary orbit and maybe out to the moon.

We’ll see that sort of integrated earth-space economy continue to develop. That’s the most exciting thing for me as a long-term space guy to think through: How does the state take advantage of that? What can the state do from a policy or a regulatory perspective to continue to encourage that development and make sure that it’s located right here in the state of Florida? We like to say we want to be the interplanetary hub for aerospace commerce. That’s all generated from this concept of making sure full commerce to, from and in and through space has some sort of component in Florida.

That’s the fun part, and when we think about this going forward, that’s what we’re going to push on.

Space Bridge

A $126-million project to replace the NASA Causeway — twin bridges that cross the Indian River Lagoon and connect Kennedy Space Center and the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station to the mainland — is more than halfway finished. The eastbound span opened to traffic last year, and the westbound bridge is slated for completion in 2025. A 2017 NASA engineering study found that the original causeway, built in 1964 to support the Apollo program, could pose safety problems under the weight of the heavy rocket parts and freight loads that regularly make the trek over the bridge for rocket launches. The replacement bridges — designed and engineered by Volkert and constructed by Orion Marine via a partnership between NASA and the Florida Department of Transportation — are wider and higher, rising 65 feet above the Indian River Lagoon and eliminating the need for a drawbridge. The bridges also have only a 3-degree incline, compared to a typical 5% or more incline, which eases the transport of heavy rocket loads. Space Florida began pushing for the project back in 2019 under the leadership of Frank DiBello, Long’s predecessor. — Amy Keller

Tags: Technology/Innovation, Space Florida, Feature, Aerospace