A federal agency on Monday granted a license for a launchpad that would fly commercial rockets from coastal Georgia.

The Federal Aviation Administration's approval of a launch site operator license for Spaceport Camden marks a significant milestone for the Georgia space project, though many reviews and permits are needed before any rockets can actually launch.

A Camden County leader said Monday that the project propels Georgia into the space race that's seen civilians and celebrities flown into space in recent months.

"This once in a generation opportunity will provide a new frontier of economic prosperity for Camden, the region and the state of Georgia," Steve Howard, Camden County Administrator and Spaceport Camden executive project lead, said in a statement after the FAA's decision was announced.

"Georgia is part of the new space race, and we will become one of the leaders," Howard added.

Even with the license, the FAA says that more comprehensive reviews would be needed before any rockets can be launched.

In its 36-page decision released Monday, the FAA said it considered potential impacts to the climate and environment, public comments, and the agency's responsibility to encourage and promote commercial space launches by the private sector.

"Sea level rise and other climatological changes, such as increase in extreme weather events, may affect the spaceport in the coming years," the FAA wrote in its report.

Launching in August 2022 and arriving at the asteroid belt in 2026, NASA's Psyche spacecraft will orbit a world we can barely pinpoint from Earth and have never visited.

The target of NASA's Psyche mission—a metal-rich asteroid, also called Psyche, in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter—is an uncharted world in outer space. From Earth- and space-based telescopes, the asteroid appears as a fuzzy blur. What scientists do know, from radar data, is that it's shaped somewhat like a potato and that it spins on its side.

By analyzing light reflected off the asteroid, scientists hypothesize that asteroid Psyche is unusually rich in metal. One possible explanation is that it formed early in our solar system, either as a core of a planetesimal—a piece of a planet—or as primordial material that never melted. This mission aims to find out, and in the process of doing so, they expect to help answer fundamental questions about the formation of our solar system.

When the immense sound of the Ariane 5 rocket rumbles across Europe's spaceport in French Guiana, it will signal the end of a journey decades in the making. Perched atop the rocket will be the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the most sophisticated and complex observatory ever constructed. An enormous mirror 6.5 meters across, consisting of 18 gold-plated segments, will be delicately folded to fit within the nose cone.

That precious cargo carries the hopes and dreams of thousands of engineers and scientists like us who have worked for so long to make this observatory a reality. We'll no doubt all be holding our breath.

If all goes well, humanity will have a new eye on the cosmos, with capabilities that far surpass anything that has gone before.

With many countries, companies and individuals intensifying their space exploration programs, questions about rights, ownership and the feasibility of manned space missions are coming to the fore of public debate.

In early 1610, Italian astronomer and physicist Galileo Galilei wrote a letter to Cosimo de' Medici—then Grand Duke of Tuscany—stating that he had observed for moons of Jupiter (which Galileo initially believed to be stars) using his improved telescope lens. Hoping to secure the grand duke's patronage, Galileo proposed naming the bodies after Cosimo's family, eventually calling them the "Medicea Sidera," or the Medicean stars. (In the end, the moons were named for four lovers of the god Zeus: Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.)

Galileo was not the first to claim stars in the name of people on Earth, and he was to be far from the last. Although the names of celestial bodies are now determined by the International Astronomical Union using a systematic naming system, the idea that outer space is terra incognita, a place yet unexplored or claimed, where everything is up for grabs, is more powerful today than ever before.