Here, where rattlesnakes hibernate and rabbits scurry, there unfolds a two-mile runway designed to accommodate spaceships. And right beside it, past those giant rumbling tractors of sci-fi design, the groundwork is being laid for a hangar large enough to store spaceships between launchings.
This is not a secret government project, or some NASA reception hall for alien dignitaries. This is Spaceport America, a $198 million endeavor by the State of New Mexico to plumb the commercial potential of the suborbital heavens — a place once known only to astronauts, dreamers and the occasional chimp.
Space tourism. Scientific research. Satellite deliveries. All possible up there, where the stars glitter like spilled coins. Who knows? One day you might decide to skip another two-week vacation in the Wisconsin Dells for a two-hour trip into space. Fly Virgin Galactic. See the sights from as high as 80 miles up. Five minutes of weightlessness guaranteed. Just $200,000.
via http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/us/22land.html?th&emc=th
Sounds pretty cool.
But there's already a spaceport in Mojave--I was there a bunch of years ago (2005, maybe?) to see Spaceship One go into space. It was pretty cool. It made me wonder what private industry waited this long for. I guess they're so averse to risk that they felt it was not worth trying to innovate.
Up and out, folks--that's the direction of things, like it or not...
Still, it's good news to see a new spaceport being built. Maybe space is America's way back to prosperity?
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