Virgin Galactic to Build Space Port in New Mexico

aapold writes "Virgin Galactic today announced plans to build a $225 million space port in southern New Mexico. Richard Branson will meet with governor Bill Richardson Wednesday to unveil the plans. Virgin Galactic is the company leveraging Spaceship One which, as reported by Slashdot, claimed the Ansari X prize for commercial space flight."

Re:Exciting times

[binaryDigit]

and the "real" exploration of space can begin.

I think you meant to say "the real exploitation of space can begin". Think high velocity spacecraft junk is a problem now, wait till you have disposable camera wrappers and discarded "Welcome to Space!" flyers zooming around up there.

Re:Careful there....

[tpgp]

Remember, the CEOs of tech companies failed to constrain costs in the late 1990s, and we know what happened to them. Be very careful in spending. Consider whether this port is absolutly necesssary.

Two points:

1) They have a practical source of income - with the first two million allready accounted for

2) "Tech companies" did not fail to constrain costs in the late 1990s, internet startups failed to have viable business plans. There is a big difference.

Re:Good for Business?

[ocelotbob]

They do. Cheap travel into space means opportunities in metallurgy, mining, medicine, and tourism, just to name a few industries. New Mexico isn't England, it's large, sparse, with a lot of area that, simply put, isn't easily inhabitable, thus mitigating a lot of the pollution problems that come with any large industrial venture. Traffic is not a very major problem as well; the area already has a freeway bisecting it that could handle a few thousand more people in terms of traffic with no problem. New Mexico was chosen precisely because it's out of the way enough that you don't have to worry about the NIMBY affect, but close enough to civilization that people can still get to it. Face it, space is the future, plain and simple.

Re:Another one for the Brits!

[JackDW]

Wonder if this'll get the U.S Govt to put NASA where it should be. I hope so. It's been a LONG time since there was any frontiers pushed - the US Space Programme seems happy just ticking along instead of pushing the boundaries as it did in the 60's and 70's.

But putting people in space is expensive, dangerous, and also futile, as it takes far too long to actually go anywhere at present. NASA has pushed back the boundaries constantly with the many probes it has sent out since the 60s, which are a much more cost-effective way to explore the Universe.

Re:Hmm

[CrazyTalk]

Low population density = cheap land. Not to mention plenty of room to grow and fewer legal hurdles, complaining residents, etc. Imagine trying to build a spaceport in Manhattan!

fraud and exaggeration

[The Fun Guy]

The spaceport, to be located some 25 miles south of the town of Truth or Consequences, will be constructed 90 percent underground, with just the runway and supporting structures above ground.

Some people might think that they are going to all of the trouble and expense of digging out tunnels and pits to construct living quarters, maintenance, etc. is for energy efficiency or something.

The real reason is more unsavory.

If you are announcing your intention to build a conventional (above ground) 60,000 square foot multi-building compound, it will be obvious to everyone if you only build the first 5000 square foot building, and leave the rest for when you actually turn a profit. If it's "90 percent underground", then you can just dig out for that first little structure, put a few 5' side tunnels on and install locked doors in front of the dirt. Who can tell the difference? If you slap labels like "Authorized Personnel Only" or "Hazardous Area - Do Not Enter", then you don't have to open the doors for the reporters who come to tour the "spaceport".

What this means is that they can put up a few sheds and bunkers above ground, build one showcase underground structure to show the reporters and passengers (who come in one or two at a time). Have a few bulldozers and dumptrucks drive around for awhile "building" the rest, then call it a spaceport. That might give them enough time to do a few flights to get the money coming in, then they can actually build the rest of it (probably above ground, with a cover story about how the original underground plans were too expensive). If the project tanks, they walk away without having sunk a lot of money in the thing.

If you can't see it, it isn't there.

Re:non-orbital

[ajpr]

I think what they mean is that it is cheaper than an equivalent NASA attempt. NASA doesn't do sub-orbital launches, and therefore any similar launch by NASA would cost a lot more in terms of $ and safety. To get to orbit you can't use the hybrid engines that SpaceShipOne has, there's just not enough kick per unit mass. And the Shuttle only manages to crawl into space because of its solid rocket boosters, that massive tank in between the SRBs (liquid H2/O2 mix) contributes a small % to the overall thrust.

The technology for sub-orbital flights obviously has been around for a long time. Yet the costs involved for even sub-orbital launches have always been high due them being entirely governmental companies. The X-Prize was setup to find out the cheapest way to get the ordinary person into space, whereas the state space programs have always been about pushing the boundaries of human exploration. The cheapest way is to only go as far as the edge of space to save massively on the thrust and energy requirements. The savings that this makes can then be offset by using a less effective fuel (hybrid), but that has the advantage of being a lot safer. The hybrid engines use fuels that generally are easy to store safely (non of this cryogenic nonsense like the shuttle) and also can be switched off in the event of a malfunction (SRBs once lit burn all the way to the tip).

People will still have to pay $20 million to the russians to go into space for a few days, so there is still going to be a large gap between those that go sub-orbital and the few that can afford to pay for orbital space access.

expensive pounds to orbit

[zogger]

I think once true colonization of space begins that very little if anything will be considered "trash". I would imagine most everything hauled up at expensive-per-pound will be built to be either well constructed and used for a long time or rebuildable/upgradeable or designed to be recyclable. Even various oerganic "wastes" will be reprocessed and used in space farming or energy production, liquids reclaimed for their H20 content, etc, etc. People only throw away things when they are cheap or broken now in "rich" industrialised economies, in space it will get fixed or used to build something else. Think "shanty towns" on earth now, complete communities built on "used various stuff", just in space it will be on-purpose from the beginning.

Re:Exciting times

[Erwos]

Bad comparison. You have personal ownership of your bank account. No one has personal ownership of an asteroid.

You can exploit a resource responsibly, too. You need to stop thinking of exploitation as "taking advantage of", and start thinking of "making use of".

-Erwos

Re:Exciting times

[Somegeek]

Right now, we have neither the ability to cause significant pollution, nor the capability to avoid it, so it's doubly moot.

Try telling that to NASA the next time that they are about to shift the orbit of the Shuttle or the ISS because of a possible collision with debris in orbit. I sure they will be relieved to find out that it doesn't really matter and they don't need to bother. And the astronauts that have been on orbit during collisions with debris will probably be doubly relieved to find that it was just an insignificant event and nothing to worry about.

some links:

NASA Orbital Debris Program Office : http://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/ [nasa.gov]
picture of damage to the shuttle front window:
http://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/photogallery /gallarypage/sts7crack.jpg [nasa.gov]
picture of a panel that was left in orbit for over 5 years and then brought back for examination:
http://www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov/photogallery /gallarypage/ldefpanel.jpg [nasa.gov]

Re:expensive pounds to orbit

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, the simple response to that is, "then why is there already so much junk in orbit?" but that seems to be addressed more in a previous thread, so let's think about the space ladder, or space elevator (which has had to slow its progress due to worries of what would happen if space debris collided with the tether).

From this LiftPort's website (http://liftport.com/research2.php [liftport.com]) "According to several NASA studies, a space elevator would dramatically reduce the cost of sending payloads into space. The same studies estimate that the cost of sending payloads into space could be reduced from $20,000 per pound down to $400 per pound." Yes, this is a commercial site explaining the benefits of its proposed product, but I've also read about the cost difference in Wired and heard it other places.
You make a good point in that expensive things are rarely wasted, but all that changes when those things stop being expensive, and something tells me that "true colonization of space" will probably happen once the cost comes down, not before it does.