SALT LAKE CITY — The Beehive State could one day be even more involved in the space industry.

State Sen. Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton, is sponsoring a bill that would establish a Spaceport Exploration Committee.

That committee would seek out a potential spot for a spaceport in the state and recommend it to lawmakers if they felt it made sense for Utah, according to the current bill text. 

Stevenson told KSL NewsRadio with Utah’s current resources for a potential leap to the space launches, like the state’s military bases and the West Desert, “It just seemed like kind of a natural place for us to take a step.”

Stevenson also noted Utah’s current role in space exploration, including most recently in September 2023 when NASA’s OSIRIS-REx capsule, containing material from an asteroid, ended its seven-year journey with a touchdown on the Utah Test and Training Range in the West Desert.

However, Stevenson said he doesn’t see Utah replacing Cape Canaveral or another major player in the space industry. Rather, he feels Utah has the space and the resources to launch satellites or other things from a large aircraft or maybe even a medium-sized rocket.

As to where this spaceport could be, “It could be at any airport that has the capability of… moving a larger airplane into the air,” Stevenson said.

Stevenson said the goal of this legislation is to create good jobs for Utahns. If the bill passes and Utah did one day have a spaceport, he feels that would accomplish the goal.

“Whoever thought we’d be where we are with this stuff now 30 years ago?” Stevenson said.

The bill is seeking $500,000 in one-time funding from the Legislature. If passed, it would take effect on May 7 of this year.

More on the upcoming legislative session:

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WASHINGTON COUNTY, Ohio (WTAP) – First responders are on the scene of a fire at a scrap yard in Washington County.

Not much information is known at this time, but what we do know is the fire is at Guernsey Scrap Recycling.

According to the Reno Volunteer Fire Department Fire Chief Jon Bradford, departments from Reno, Williamstown, Devola, Salem, Little Muskingum, and Marietta are on the scene. All of those departments are shuttling water to the scene.

The fire is contained in one area of the facility. Reno VFD is using the MOV Drone Works drone to help fight the fire. The owner of the scrap yard is in a crane helping to move items to assist firefighters.

It is not known what started the fire. And Chief Bradford says nobody was injured, and nobody is at risk.

WTAP has a reporter on the scene and will have more information as it becomes available.

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Wyoming and Massachusetts have joined the expanding number of U.S. states that may soon vote on establishing Bitcoin reserves, with representatives from both states submitting draft legislation supporting the initiative on Friday. 

In Wyoming, a group of five Republican legislators submitted a bill that would permit the state treasurer to invest public funds in Bitcoin, but no other digital assets.

In recent weeks, other states have put forth slightly more permissive bills, which would in some cases allow states to invest in stablecoins and other cryptocurrencies that surpassed $500 billion in market capitalization—though as of this writing, Bitcoin is the only asset that meets that requirement.

Wyoming’s bill is also more restrictive in another regard: It would only permit its treasurer to invest 3% of a given state fund in Bitcoin. Proposed legislation in other states, such as Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, would allow for investments in digital assets to make up 10% of similar public funds. 

Meanwhile, in deep blue Massachusetts, a lone Republican state senator proposed a bill on Friday proposing the establishment of a Bitcoin strategic reserve. That act, submitted by Peter Durant, is more permissive than Wyoming’s, and would allow for up to 10% of Massachusetts’ rainy day fund to be comprised of Bitcoin or any manner of digital asset.  

At this point, nearly one-fifth of all U.S. state legislatures are poised to soon formally weigh whether to invest public funds in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Every such proposal has been submitted in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s re-election in November, by Republicans.

Trump, long a crypto skeptic, abruptly changed tack on the campaign trail this year after being a noted Bitcoin critic in the past. In July, onstage at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville, he called for the federal government to establish its own Bitcoin stockpile. 

The chorus for such initiatives is rapidly gaining momentum. On Friday afternoon, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong publicly called for the creation of a U.S. Bitcoin strategic reserve for the first time. 

“The next global arms race will be in the digital economy, not space,” Armstrong said in a company blog post. “Bitcoin could be as foundational to the global economy as gold and will become central to national security in a world where holdings of Bitcoin can shift the balance of power among nation states.”

Edited by Andrew Hayward