Here’s a Really Dumb Idea – Let’s Let Cash Strapped States Build a Bunch of Spaceports

Too Late – They Already Did



New Mexico's Spaceport Under Construction

or

What a Wasted $200 million looks like



Did anyone know that a bunch of states have spent hundreds of millions of dollars building spaceports?  These are launching sites for private commercial trips into space.  It turns out that New Mexico is just one of several states that started these projects.





New Mexico's $209 million Spaceport America is at last nearly complete, nine months behind schedule.

The two-mile-long runway for space planes is ready to go. Construction crews are putting the finishing touches on the futuristic terminal. But the real challenge is yet to come

And what challenge would that be?  And there is this.

The technological and marketing breakthroughs that were supposed to usher in a dramatic surge in space launches have been slow to materialize

Translation:  There ain’t  no rockets or customers to use the spaceports.

Of course it would be wrong to single out New Mexico

A spaceport in Virginia that once focused almost exclusively on hosting National Aeronautics and Space Administration and military launches is now reaching out to private firms, offering tax breaks and other incentives. Oklahoma is seeking tenants for a former Air Force base it converted into a spaceport. Potential rival projects in Puerto Rico and on the Texas coast are in preliminary discussions with Space Exploration Technologies Corp., founded by entrepreneur Elon Musk.

Foreign nations, too, are racing to get in the game. XCOR Aerospace, a start-up that aims to be the low-fare leader in space tourism, plans to launch its rocket-powered flights from spaceports under development in South Korea and the Caribbean island of Curacao, as well as its home base of Mojave, Calif. New launch sites are also under discussion in Scandinavia and the U.K.

But New Mexico has a customer for its spaceport.

Virgin Galactic has signed a 20-year-lease and is expected to pay at least $5 million a year for the right to use the spaceport's enormous runway to launch tourists on joyrides into weightlessness.



Former NM Gov. Bill Richardson and
Billionaire Richard Branson
Billionaire Gets Government Welfare
 of $200 million



But the payments don't begin until Virgin Galactic is ready for commercial launches of its six-passenger spaceship . . .Mr. Branson originally suggested commercial flights could start in 2008. Then he revised that to 2010. . . . Virgin Galactic, however, no longer makes public predictions about when it will begin transporting passengers to space.



Where it is - right in the heart
of tourist destinations -
In case you want to go



Wow, $5 million a year.  Counting interest that means New Mexico will get its money back in about 60 to 70 years.  And here's a thought.  Mr. Branson is very, very wealthy.  Anybody think to ask him to foot the $200 million bill?  Anyone?

Ok Conservatives, go ahead and criticize, and cut and run on these projects.  You have the full support of The Dismal Political Economist on this one.