The future of Colorado’s commercial space industry may lie out on the wind-whipped runways of Front Range Airport.

Colorado is pursuing Federal Aviation Administration designation for a spaceport, with Front Range as the likely site for such a facility, Gov. John Hickenlooper announced Wednesday.

Front Range is located near Watkins, east of Denver. Its proposed status as “Spaceport Colorado” would allow for creation of a facility offering tourism, travel and cargo transport to space and from point to point on Earth.

Spaceports — of which eight are active in the United States — are viewed as important economic-development tools.

“These are the opportunities, like cellphones in the early 1990s, that seem farfetched but may not be all that far away. The potential here is huge,” Hickenlooper said to about 300 aerospace industry members gathered at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science.

Just a year or two ago, Colorado was considered too populated to allow the construction and operation of a spaceport.

Since then, the development of dual-propulsion spacecraft that can take off from a conventional runway has altered those perceptions. The emerging technology is expected to make space travel easier because it doesn’t have the risks of vertical launches.

“Being able to launch horizontally is a game-changer,” said Barry Gore, chief executive of Adams County Economic Development.

The concept sounds like something out of Buck Rogers — space planes taxi and take off powered by jet engines, switch to rocket engines when they hit altitude and switch back to jet engines for landing.

“In an hour and a half, you can be in Singapore,” said Tom Clark, executive president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp.

Hickenlooper sent a letter on Oct. 31 to the FAA’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation, which licenses spaceports, asking that Colorado be recognized as a “proposed spaceport state.” He cited the state’s diverse and extensive aerospace industry.

New data released Wednesday reveals Colorado has reclaimed its position as the No. 2 space economy from Florida. California still leads the pack.

Colorado is home to several military aerospace commands, federal labs, aerospace research programs and hundreds of companies, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Ball Aerospace and DigitalGlobe.

The process to become a designated spaceport takes about a year. A pre-application visit by FAA officials is expected in early January, and the license could be issued late next year.

Once the license is approved, the FAA can distribute grants to cover research and studies of the proposed spaceport.

“We have significant infrastructure in place,” said Dennis Heap, director of aviation at Front Range. “I can’t think of a show-stopper.”

Rocket-fuel storage is an issue that would have to be addressed, Heap said, along with other FAA suggestions. Funding of those requirements would come from public-private partnerships.

Front Range, one of the largest general aviation airports in the country, has 4,000 acres of airport property and is surrounded by 6,000 acres of privately owned industrial property, all in an aviation-influence zone, Heap said.

Front Range is remote — about 22 miles east of Denver — but is close enough to access support services.

The airport has two 8,000- foot-long runways, with plans to lengthen them to 10,000 feet. It has good transportation in Interstate 70 and a rail line to the south.

Even Denver International Airport’s closeness — a scant 6 miles away — is an advantage, Heap said, saying travelers or cargo can arrive and depart through DIA and conveniently transfer to space planes at Front Range.

Those are attributes that don’t exist at Spaceport America near Las Cruces, N.M., probably the best known of the U.S. spaceports.

Utah-based Rocket Crafters has been working on the space planes, with the assistance of two former NASA spacecraft designers. The first test flight is expected in 2014.

Heap said a space-plane pilot training school — a joint venture between Rocket Crafters and the Spartan College of Aeronautics and Technology in Tulsa — could open at Front Range in three to five years, with commercial flights in 10 to 15 years.

Ann Schrader: 303-954-1967 or aschrader@denverpost.com