Looks like the spaceport will be located in New Mexico.

Virgin Galactic, the British company created by entrepreneur Richard Branson to send tourists into space, and New Mexico announced an agreement Tuesday for the state to build a $225 million spaceport. Virgin Galactic also revealed that up to 38,000 people from 126 countries have paid a deposit for a seat on one of its manned commercial flights, including a core group of 100 "founders" who have paid the initial $200,000 cost of a flight upfront. Virgin Galactic is planning to begin flights in late 2008 or early 2009.

New Mexico Economic Development Secretary Rick Homans said construction of the spaceport, to be built largely underground in the south of the state near the White Sands Missile Range, could begin in early 2007, depending on approval from environmental and aviation authorities.

Virgin will have a 20-year lease on the facility, with annual payments of $1 million for the first five years and rising to cover the cost of the project by the end of the lease.

"Experts predict that thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars of private investment will be created in the next 20 years as the private sector develops new commercial markets in the space industry in New Mexico," Homans said in London. "Virgin is the beginning and many other space companies will follow."

Virgin Galactic said it had chosen New Mexico as the site for its headquarters because of its steady climate, free airspace, low population density and high altitude. All those factors can significantly reduce the cost of the space flight program.

Already, there are 100 people ready to front them money as a down payment on spaceflight. Officials with Virgin Galactic indicate they expect others to follow.

Stephen Attenborough, the Virgin Galactic executive in charge of marketing the space flights, said the 100 founder members were committed to "stepping up to the plate" and boarding a flight early in the operations.
"Many of the others will need to wait until the price comes down and will want to wait for proven reliability and safety," he said.

Got that right – I can’t see being able to afford the current price on a teacher’s salary. And as far as waiting for “proven reliability and safety”, I think the technical term is “prudence.”

But I wish Branson and his colleagues well in getting this venture off the ground (pun not intended). It is how space flight ought to be.

Posted by: Greg at 12:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 426 words, total size 3 kb.