Phase one of world’s first commercial spaceport in America is 90% complete

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Mumbai Mirror

Phase one of world’s first commercial spaceport in America is 90% complete
Posted On Wednesday, September 07, 2011 at 02:03:43 AM

New Mexico Phase one of the world's first commercial spaceport, the hub for Virgin's consumer spaceflights, is now 90 per cent complete.

The Daily Mail reports that the 1,800-acre Spaceport America site, in Las Cruces, New Mexico, is the home base for Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's most ambitious business venture yet.

It already boasts a runway stretching nearly two miles long, a futuristic styled terminal hanger, and a dome-shaped Space Operations Centre.

The work is now just months away from completion, according to a spaceport spokesman, and is set to be done by the end of the year, well in time for the first expected Virgin Galactic spaceflights in 2013.





Read more: http://www.mumbaimirror.com/article/4/20110907201109070203529552c138de3/Phase-one-of-world%E2%80%99s-first-commercial-spaceport-in-America-is-90-complete.html

[ixion]

1. maybe it's just me, but

this project seems ill-timed and out-of-place in a depression.

[Jkid]

2. But NASA may have a new role as a regulator for these spaceflights.

[ixion]

8. so NASA gets reduced to air-traffic control, and that's a good thing?

I'm going to have to disagree with you that this would be beneficial.

[SpiralHawk]

4. What have you got against Republicon Billionaires having a little fun?

[ixion]

9. That picture made me throw up a little bit in my mouth

:puke:

[Posteritatis]

14. It was started awhile ago, and jobs are rarely out of place in a depression. (nt)

[Name removed]

15. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[crikkett]

18. The faster we leave this planet the more likely we'll survive its demise n/t

[sam11111]

3. Privatize = low wage, shabby product, hi price + owner a new rich big donor to GOP who will send

Factory to India.

Note that article is from India HMmmMmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

[slackmaster]

5. LOL!

Nice fantasy, but there really isn't much at the site yet.

[Quixote1818]

12. What do you mean? It's 90% done

I live in New Mexico and we get updates on how things are coming all the time. Here is how it looked a few months back:

http://www.facebook.com/#!/photo.php?fbid=252327801446798&set=a.155874871092092.37556.100000087414537&type=1&theater

[slackmaster]

13. Thanks, but I don't do Facebook. http://www.spaceportamerica.com is a basket case...

Google Images turns up a few pics of a concrete slab with forms still in place, and a whole lot of CGI pics of various cool-looking things.

ETA I found one of a terminal building under construction.



And Virgin's site has an aerial pic showing a building and a runway.

http://www.virgingalactic.com/overview/spaceport/

[sam11111]

6. space tourists spend ?$500000? at a time when 30000 kids just starved to death in somalia

And nine million more will this year in other places that aid CAN easily reach, no warlord barriers.

Shame on you.

[a la izquierda]

7. They should name it Mos Eisley.

By the time it's finished, the entire country (and by that I mean the US) surrounding it will be a slum, just like in Star Wars.

[ixion]

10. true, that

:(

[struggle4progress]

11. The people who live on one of Peter Thiel's floating libertarian islands will be able to

climb into one of Jeff Bezos's rockets to spend a fun-packed weekend drinking and hiding from space radiation in a tunnel on the moon!

O brave new world!

:eyes:

[ngant17]

16. the un-economics of space exploration

It's nice to know that some billionaire wants to throw money into the bottomless pit of space exploration. It's like race-car driving. Unless you have wealthy sponsors willing to spend money, you can't survive and make a living on it. It's a form of entertainment, but few people can spend $100k dollars to take a joy ride in outer space.

Inventions for space use will cost more to develop than the same invention used on earth. So how can anything be considered economical in space?

Keith Cowing, a former NASA space biologist, compares space exploration to "the value of Columbus’s voyages to the New World in the late 1490s." However, he misses important factors. Unlike the American continent, travelling to the nearest land mass in space, the moon, it has no human slave labor to be exploited. No gold or silver, a lot of it in the New World was already extracted. Yeah, the moon has a good bit of titanium dioxide and H3, but extracting it is another Herculean task. On the moon, its terra firma can not be colonized right away without complex life-support systems. No animals to hunt. You can't plant sugar cane, tobacco or corn or go fishing. That was the value of the exploration of the New World.

Outer space is considerably more dangerous than having to dodge hostile Indians shooting arrows at you. Very little protection against radiation. Space debris, manmade or natural, will always be a constant threat. Micrometeoroids and orbital debris travel up to 18 kms/sec. (40,000 mph). And if they are radioactive metals, it will be more denser than a lead bullet, as in armor-piercing projectiles. For some minor protection, there are over 100 "Whipple" shielding configurations on the International Space Station. But large portions of the ISS cannot be protected, including its solar panels. Measuring and tracking space debris is one of the major activities in the space industry today. The problem gets worse every year, as more manmade debris gets scattered into low-earth orbit.

Economically though, I believe space exploration should proceed at the international level, as Pres. Kennedy envisioned in late 1963. He was not in favor of a race against the Russians to the moon. Quite the contrary, he was for international cooperation in space. Everyone seems to miss his point these days. When space is used for nationalist purposes, it becomes militaristic and war-mongering, it will be controlled by the military for military purposes.

[plumbob]

17. Not a photo one can be found on Google images. Just some drawings

and concept paintings.

Suppose it's a Branson scam?