Long before there were Foggy Bottom Swindles, Epic Charter School Schemes, and Pac-Man Video Game Cabinet School Supply Grifts, one of the coolest wastes of Oklahoma taxpayer dollars involved a company called Rocketplane Limited.
Back in the early aughts, Oklahoma lawmakers gave Rocketplane $15-million in taxpayer money to build a space tourism center at the state spaceport in Burns Flat – a real thing that exists to this very day.
Before he could make the jump to light speed, the owner of the company quickly turned around and sold those tax credits, and – not surprisingly – filed for bankruptcy just five years later, leaving Oklahoma’s dreams of being a space tourism mecca up in the stars.