Spaceport slated to open in 2010
More than 275 customers have booked their flights
Its intended prime tenant, Virgin Galactic, says the startup will also be ready for business by then, with more than 275 customers who have already paid $35 million total to book seats on spaceships that would launch from the high desert site and fly to the edge of space.
Many hurdles remain — including environmental approvals and certifying the space-worthiness of Virgin Galactic's radical White Knight Two and SpaceShipTwo — but the project got a major boost last month when voters in a second New Mexico county approved a sales tax increase to help pay for the spaceport. New Mexico officials are gleeful that they were able to persuade residents of Sierra County, a large and sparsely populated area with an average age of 55, to vote 2-1 for the tax increase.
"The space business is a very, very difficult one, and you never know what lies ahead," said Kelly O'Donnell, chair of New Mexico's Spaceport Authority, which was conceived in 1990. "But we're moving ahead just as we hoped."
O'Donnell said that once the federal government grants the permits, construction can begin quickly, because the authority has the $200 million it needs from the state and county governments.
Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, founded by entrepreneur-adventurer Richard Branson, said the company's mother ship (made of super-light carbon-composite metal) will make its first test flight in late summer. The company is working with the Federal Aviation Administration on safety and other issues, and the process is going well, he said.
"But we can't say exactly when everything will be settled, because, well, this has never been done before," Whitehorn said. The company is negotiating a long-term lease at the spaceport, which will be its international headquarters.
"We're in the very early stage of creating a new kind of air transport system," said Steven Landeene, executive director of the New Mexico spaceport. "Space tourism is the first phase, along with the commercial launching of satellites and spacecraft that can carry cargo and even astronauts to the international space station and maybe later the moon. But it's possible to begin thinking about a point-to-point network where passengers can rocket from one place to another at speeds much faster than today."
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