“So when you’re near me, darling can’t you hear me
S. O. S.
The love you gave me, nothing else can save me
S. O. S.
When you’re gone
How can I even try to go on?
When you’re gone
Though I try how can I carry on?”

— ABBA, “S.O.S.”

By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

The Save Our Spaceport (S.O.S.) Coalition is up and running with a website to support for an extension of the informed consent law for Virgin Galactic and other future tenants of Spaceport America.

So, after lengthy negotiations, years of construction, extravagant promises of new jobs and businesses by politicians and a British billionaire, and the investment of $209 million in taxpayer’s money, New Mexico faces the following stark choice in the new year:

Sign away all the rights of passengers and their heirs to sue for injuries or deaths aboard space vehicles except in cases of gross negligence or intentional harm

or

Face the prospect of having an empty spaceport miles from anywhere with no discernible use when Virgin Galactic picks up and goes elsewhere and no one else will move in.

This would be funny (or even farcical) if it didn’t involve so much public money.

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By Douglas Messier
Parabolic Arc Managing Editor

Spaceport America in New Mexico is still unfinished and has yet to see a single commercial spaceflight, but it is apparently already in need of saving.

Or so says the Save our Spaceport Coalition, which held a press conference this morning in Albuquerque. The event was held to “announce the formation of a group dedicated to pass a new law limiting the liability for space accidents in order to ensure the future of Spaceport America and save thousands of jobs in aerospace, tourism, and construction,” according to a press release from the coalition.

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