Originally published January 6 2006
New Mexico plans to build $225 million spaceport
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
New Mexico plans for the state Legislature to contribute $100 million over the next three years in order to make the space port a reality. The current concept is for most of the facilities to be underground.
New Mexico's plan to build a $225 million spaceport calls for the state Legislature to contribute $100 million in new money over the next three years --- the "cornerstone" of an effort that could open up outer space to thousands of paying customers over the next decade, Gov.
The balance would come from state funding already approved, as well as federal and local funds, said Rick Homans, New Mexico's economic development secretary.
"What we are calling the second space age will open up a wide range of commercial opportunities, including point-to-point cargo delivery, with personal and business travel," Richardson said, during a Santa Fe news briefing that provided New Mexico's perspective on the ambitious spaceport plan.
Work has not yet begun on the proposed 27-square-mile site, which is on state-owned lands near the White Sands Missile Range, 45 miles (72 kilometers) north of Las Cruces.
However, New Mexico officials have laid out a timeline for the obtaining of a federal spaceport license during 2006 and the start of construction in 2007.
The very first flights will take off from Mojave Airport in the California desert, but Virgin will move its base of operations to New Mexico after the new Southwest Regional Spaceport is finished, in late 2009 or early 2010.
Closely watched player Virgin Galactic is the most closely watched player in the infant suborbital tourist industry --- partly because it's backed by the Virgin Group's flamboyant billionaire chairman, Richard Branson; and partly because the company's fleet of five spaceships will use the technology pioneered last year by the SpaceShipOne rocket plane, the first privately developed craft to reach the fringe of outer space.
The spaceport could someday become the base for commercial flights into orbit, with space hotels and private research facilities as destinations, he said.
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