Spaceport America: Buyer’s Remorse

Spaceport America is an 18,000 acre commercial spaceport in New Mexico’s Jornada del Muerto desert basin near the White Sands Missile Range. Then-Governor Bill Richardson and Sir Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic made the deal happen in 2006, and the facility opened in 2011. It cost New Mexico taxpayers $220 million and hasn’t earned very much, so some state legislators want to sell the thing. Anybody got a phone number for Flash Gordon?

More:

“The Troubled Future of the World’s First Commercial Spaceport,” Darren Orf, Gizmodo

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Image (“Spaceport America”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

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Tags: Bill Richardson, boondoggles, commercial space flight, New Mexico, NM, Spaceport America, spaceports, SpaceX, Virgin Galactic