Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
Serving Clovis, Portales and the Surrounding Communities
This from a Source New Mexico report last week:
Virgin Galactic, New Mexico’s anchor tenant for Spaceport America, is pausing its flights to the edge of space and laying off a bunch of its workers.
That’s not a good sign for the state’s $212 million spaceport southeast of Truth or Consequences, but I’m glad we built it anyway.
You might remember Spaceport America as the creation of then-Gov. Bill Richardson, who saddled up with British billionaire Richard Branson to sell the idea of a commercial spaceport to New Mexico legislators, who ultimately approved its funding.
Construction on the facility started in 2006; it opened for business in 2011.
It grew from there — slower than Branson predicted and Richardson pledged, but it finally took off.
Central to the spaceport’s financial success, we were told, would be commercial Virgin Galactic tours to the edge of space for those few who could afford a ticket, which started at $200,000 per. Those flights finally got off the ground earlier this year, but they didn’t last long. As the recent announcement of a “pause” in the flights and the layoffs of 185 employees suggests, space tourism isn’t as lucrative as Branson thought it would be.
Nevertheless, when it comes to the world’s race into space, New Mexico still has plenty of skin in the game.
Consider the White Sands Missile Range, which NASA and the U.S. Air Force use as a testing ground for all sorts of rockets, often built by private companies such as SpaceX, another significant Spaceport America tenant.
Plus, we have Los Alamos National Laboratories and Sandia National Laboratories, cutting edge facilities for the advancement of the scientific research needed for space exploration and survival.
We have the Very Large Array, one of the world’s most sophisticated radio astronomy observatories, west of Magdalena, and the National Solar Observatory at Sunspot near Cloudcroft — both top-notch facilities for some pretty impressive star-gazing.
And we have more than 50 space-related companies headquartered or doing business in New Mexico, according to the state Economic Development Department.
New Mexico’s involvement in space goes back to our pre-history. On a “space map” created by the New Mexico Museum of Space History (nmspacemuseum.org), some 52 specific locations are identified, starting on a mountaintop called Wizard’s Roost, an archeo-astronomy site in Lincoln County where, during prehistoric time, our ancestors meticulously aligned stones to the summer and winter solstices.
The map, however, isn’t much of a tourist’s guide. Most of the sites are closed to the public out of preservation or security concerns, but the map does highlight this state’s rich history in space observation and exploration.
Putting a specific price tag on New Mexico’s space industry is difficult because of all the public-private collaborations that often fall into secrecy out of national security (or proprietary) concerns, but according to one estimate, its contribution to the state’s economy is in the billions of dollars.
So, even if Spaceport America is hurting right now because of Virgin Galactic’s announcement, that’s only a small piece of the economic pie.
Besides, who needs such high-priced space tours anyway. Better to support other space explorers of our time, like Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
Musk, of course, wants to go to Mars — a venture that would be considerably more expensive and time-consuming than Sir Richard’s 90-minute tour. Maybe someone should reach out to Mr. Musk and point out that some extra space just opened up at Spaceport America, and we’d be happy to rent it to him.
Tom McDonald is editor of the New Mexico Community News Exchange. Contact him at:
