WASHINGTON - (States News Service) - Oklahoma has joined a host of other states with wide-open spaces in the ever-growing race to secure Lockheed Martin's lucrative Venture Star project, an attempt to build a fully reusable launching vehicle. At least 32 sites in 15 states are vying to host the $5 billion project, which promises payload service to orbit cheaper than the space shuttle and other conventional methods.

The state legislature overwhelmingly passed a law earlier this year creating a state space agency and designated the old Clinton-Sherman Air Force Base at Burns Flat as the site for a future spaceport.

"This is not an appropriations bill," said John Cox, spokesman for Gov. Frank Keating. "All it does is designate the land as somewhere this could happen." Keating signed the bill into law in May after it passed the Oklahoma state senate 96-2.

Along with designating the former airport as a future spaceport, the law creates the "Oklahoma Space Industry Development Authority to promote development and improvement of space exploration and spaceport facilities," according to an official summary of the law. A seven-member board of directors will direct the authority. Gov. Keating has not appointed anyone to the board yet, Cox said, "but it's in the hopper."

Lockheed's Skunk Works facility, which manages Venture Star, will not be making a decision on which site gets the project until 2001, said spokesman Gary Grigg.

States that have traditionally hosted strong space industries, such as Florida and California, are competing alongside space newcomers like Nevada, New Mexico, and now Oklahoma. The Associated Press reported that if the state landed the VentureStar contract it could result in the creation of 22,000 new jobs.