Spotlight on SPACEPORT
Spaceport, industry leaders prepare for global spotlight
The New Mexico Spaceport is preparing to go viral this year as Virgin Galactic gears up for liftoff in southern New Mexico.
Sir Richard Branson is widely expected to board the first commercial passenger rocket to shoot into suborbit sometime in 2020 in an event that could capture global attention as the turning point that marks the dawn of commercial space travel. Rocket flights with paying passengers will soon follow, potentially kicking up an unprecedented groundswell of spectator tourism and worldwide media attention that the spaceport and local industry leaders want to be ready for.
To prepare, the New Mexico Spaceport Authority is seeking $57million in capital outlay this year for infrastructure projects it considers critical, beginning with $25 million for a welcoming center and visitor access control installations.
In addition, it’s seeking $20 million for space vehicle and payload processing centers for companies operating at the spaceport’s horizontal and vertical launch areas to do on-site assembly of rockets and the microgravity experiments placed in them. It also wants $10 million for the first phase of a new taxiway in the horizontal launch area to run parallel to the current 12,000foot runway, and it wants $2 million for a modern IT control center for all communications infrastructure at the spaceport.
Separately, the Governor’s Office is requesting a $3.6 million annual appropriation from the general fund for spaceport operations, up from $1 million this fiscal year, in part to ramp up spaceport staff in FY2021.
Those are tall orders for this year’s legislative session, especially because the state has already invested $220 million to build the spaceport, plus $25 million in capital outlay in the past two years for other infrastructure projects.
But spaceport leaders and supporters say the new projects are critical as New Mexico moves to the forefront of the world’s emerging commercial space industry.
Branson’s coming spaceflight and the passenger launches soon to follow offer a historic opportunity for New Mexico to rocket into global stardom as one of the key leaders in the new space age, said Dale Dekker of architecture firm Dekker/Perich/Sabatini.
Dekker co-founded Ambassadors for Spaceport America, a group that now unites about 400 local professionals, businesspeople and enthusiasts to promote the spaceport and New Mexico’s budding commercial space industry.
“We believe that investments in the spaceport will pay off this year with a global event that New Mexico has really never experienced before,” Dekker told the Journal. “When Richard Branson boards the first rocket, it will attract national and global attention, offering an opportunity for New Mexico to show off all its space-related assets. We believe it will be seen by billions, earning the state media attention equivalent to the Super Bowl or the Olympics.”
Spaceport America must be prepared to host hundreds, if not thousands, of tourists, as well as new firms that may want to locate at the facility, both to provide goods and services to Virgin Galactic and other companies operating at the spaceport, and to conduct their own space-related activities there, said