Budget Bill Contains $10 Million for New Hangar at Spaceport America
The Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space building with a security fence around it. (Credit: Alex Heard)
The New Mexico House Appropriations Committee has approved a spending plan for the state that includes $10 million for the construction of a new hangar at Spaceport America.
The funding is “for the planning and construction of an aerospace satellite testing and development hangar,” the bill reads. “The appropriation is contingent on the New Mexico spaceport authority contracting with a vendor specializing in advanced aerospace products and technologies to use the hangar.”
Construction of the spaceport near Truth or Consequences has already cost taxpayers about $225 million. The spaceport was originally built for anchor tenant Virgin Galactic, which has yet to begin flying suborbital space tourism flights from the southern New Mexico facility.
Virgin Galactic is currently testing its second SpaceShipTwo, Unity, at the Mojave Air and Space Port in California. Richard Branson’s space company expects to conduct several powered flight tests at Mojave before moving test operations to Spaceport America later this year.
8 responses to “Budget Bill Contains $10 Million for New Hangar at Spaceport America”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Our local news media has not reported on the purpose of the $10 million hangar. It sounds like “built it and they will come.” So New Mexico is going into the managing of a hangar for some prospective unidentified customer. It is putting the cart before the horse.
The funding is contingent on them signing an agreement with a tenant. So, my guess is the spaceport authority might have a tenant that’s willing to move there but doesn’t want to spend any of its own money on building a hangar. The authority has a lease agreement with Virgin Galactic for the terminal hangar facility.
This may sound conspiratorial, but I think Richard Branson is working behind the scenes to get VG stationed and SS2 flying from the remote New Mexico site to make it more difficult and expensive for reporters (like you, Doug) to travel to see the launches. You bet he knows you, Doug; you bet he would do anything to make life more difficult for you…because he loves you so much. LOL.
Here is excellent article from Desert Exposure on the Spaceport from April 2007. It was written by David Fryxell. This bit of history should teach us a lesson for the future. Spaceport America does not need more secrecy and more money. It requires Virgin Galactic to live up to its many promises.
http://www.desertexposure.c…
When you get fleeced the second time by the same confidence scheme its on you.
The fleecing of NM taxpayers continues unabated. I guess they don’t care. Elsewhere their legislature voted to allow Spaceport America to keep its records private. Thats handy. This after NM taxpayers paid hundreds of millions to build a hole in the desert for some glitz and glam con-men who couldnt even tell you which end of a rocket goes up, on a promise to make money on something that still doesnt exist.
Let us hope there is more education in the second kick from a mule than popularly believed.
At least the state can take some pride in the fact that we will have the most expensive unusable airport–complete with two hangars and virgin runways (pardon the pun)–in the country.
Still unclear about why requiring testing at SPACEPORT (that would’ve meant JOBS) vice California wasn’t part of the agreement. At least Spaceport would be being used by con man Branson for something.
Make the new ripoff, er, hangar contingent on the existing hangar paying for itself first…