Maine looks to grow space economy, for students, research and business

BANGOR, Maine, June 7 (UPI) -- Leaders and policy makers in Maine have long been searching for ways to keep more of their in-state high school and college graduates from leaving. But lobstering and forestry, two stalwarts of the Maine economy, aren't what they used to be.

Enter the new space economy.

"There's something sexy about space," Terry Shehata, executive director of the Maine Space Grant Consortium, a NASA-funded nonprofit, told UPI.

Maine -- and its plethora of acreage, far from the light pollution of the Eastern Seaboard's major metropolises -- has always been a great place to gaze at the stars, but not necessarily to launch rockets.

Space Force studies idea of national spaceport authority