Development spin-off

'If you are setting up a new company, you want to be in a place where talented staff would like to live,' says project management specialist Maarten de Vries. 'And you want to be somewhere with an address that your potential clients can recognise as a really dynamic one.

'A location near a spaceport, one of the very few in Europe, would be a premier address for any hi-tech company to have on its website and business cards. The marketing image would be a very distinctive one.'

Maarten believes that a dual-purpose building, combining a business centre with interpretation facilities, would be a real attraction, both for start-up companies and relocations.

'It should have a futuristic design,' he says, 'with facilities for presentations and displays, and a number of office units. It would be a facility for visitors, for conferences, and for business activity, with the image of space exploration running through it.'