Commercial real estate developer Rob Lauer envisions a new era of space exploration unfolding—with Las Vegas positioned to become a key player. As CEO of the Las Vegas Spaceport and United Spaceports Corporation, Lauer is spearheading plans for a cutting-edge spaceport in Southern Nevada that would combine an executive airport with pioneering aerospace technologies, positioning the region at the frontier of the next great space race.
Rob Lauer Photo by: Courtesy
The project, which would be built on more than 200 acres of Clark County land between Las Vegas and Pahrump, would include a control tower and runways.
Vegas Inc sat down with Lauer for an exclusive look at United Spaceports’ vision, the groundbreaking progress on the Las Vegas facility, and his insights into the transformative future of commercial space exploration.
Could you give us an introduction of yourself and the company?
I came to Vegas after I was injured in the Army, and (have) been here since then, and been in commercial real estate ever since, and saw this land that was on sale. No one wanted it for years and years, and I was interested in the space program, and obviously watching the news and learning about spaceports, and decided to pursue our own facility. We’re in a position now, two years later, where we have county approval. And so right now we’re in the final stages before we can start breaking ground.
What national security implications do you see for the Las Vegas Spaceport?
We see tremendous opportunities in launching satellites and people and cargo into space as we go forward. We’ve been in talks with the Space Force folks and commanders there, and we both agree that there’s a significant need—national security need—for an inland spaceport to provide redundancy in case of a crisis that we were to have some kind of conflicts with China or someone else and those facilities got knocked down and our satellites got knocked out of space.
We need a way to launch stuff quickly and recover, and having an interior spaceport in Nevada, in Las Vegas, where we’re located 31 miles from the Strip, but surrounded by Nellis Air Force Base and Creech Air Force Base and Area 51 and all these military assets to help protect it, is an ideal location to provide those services.
What are some of the other initiatives you have planned for the Las Vegas Spaceport?
Our first step is the airport. Being in Las Vegas, we want to take advantage of all the private jets, all the holidays, national events that happen here, where we don’t have the capacity for the private jets. And we think we can do very, very well in a place where we know when Harry Reid gets full and people can—instead of going to St. George or Utah or Arizona—they can fly to us. In conjunction with that, we’re launching our own air taxi service. We’re right now looking for 12 locations in the Valley to build landing sites for these air taxis. We’re going to start with little helicopters, and then as those air taxis become a reality, we can integrate them in and incorporate them in.
Tell us about the impact the Las Vegas Spaceport will have on Southern Nevada’s economy.
United Spaceports Corporation, our primary focus is going to be acquiring existing companies—public [and] private companies. So, my plan with that is to basically move them to the Spaceport and move them here. Operate under one roof, on one location, integrated vertically, but also physically integrated on a facility where they all work together. My plan is to bring companies to Las Vegas, where they’re going to be based here, work together and that’s going to bring real jobs here.
Why is Las Vegas in a position to be the home for United Spaceports Corporation?
Nevada, and Southern Nevada particularly, has a long, distinguished history of being at the forefront of aviation and technology developments. And we have 300-plus days of sunshine. You go to Florida and try to launch there, wait an hour, the weather changes radically. We have a great environment to operate in when it comes to weather, (when) it comes to no income tax. Our cost of living is a lot less than California and Florida. We have a tremendous competitive energy. Our schools need work to produce the engineers and computer-science folks, and hopefully that can be worked on. So we can produce folks with those degrees that can be hired.
Can you talk a little about the Las Vegas Spaceport going public?
We’re going public in about six or seven months on the NASDAQ. There’s not a lot of places you can invest right now in space. There’s a handful of companies, but most of them are, frankly, kind of risky startups that have one technology that they’re hoping (for) data contracts with the government. SpaceX is not public, so there’s not a lot of places where you can invest your money and take advantage of the space sector. When you buy stock with us, you’re buying physical, hard assets. You’re buying technology companies that already are out there.
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