First Look At New Mexico's Space Terminal

Raver32 sends us to space.com for first light on the design of New Mexico's Spaceport America. Quoting: "The winning design is the work of URS Corporation — a large design and engineering enterprise — teamed with Foster + Partners of the United Kingdom, a group with extensive experience in crafting airport buildings. When the 100,000 square-foot facility is completed — the centerpiece of the world's first, purpose-built, commercial spaceport — the structures will serve as the primary operating base for Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceliner, and also as the headquarters for the New Mexico Spaceport Authority."

Comments

I think not...

[djupedal]

"...the centerpiece of the world's first, purpose-built, commercial spaceport"

I take it whomever spit out that little piece of wishful marketing spin never visited the 'Nazca Lines' on the Plains de' Peru, eh, Bunky?

Re:Anybody else

[Harmonious Botch]

...a run down backwater airport in about 20 years time? Maybe. There is going to be plenty of competition. From Seed magazine:

New Mexico isn't the only state with atmospheric ambitions. In March the Wisconsin legislature voted for a $15-million spaceport in Sheboygan. Oklahoma is converting a former B-52 base into a launch site for things like rocket-powered Learjets. Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos is quietly building mission control for his space company, Blue Origin, on his West Texas ranch, while Virginia-based Space Adventures plans two enormous facilities in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore. Spaceports in Florida, Virginia, Nevada and Alabama are also in the pipeline. And as happens when growing industries begin to mature, there is a winnowing process in which only the most fit survive. Since they are the closest one to me, I do hope they make it.

Re:Wisconsin?

[FleaPlus]

Isn't farther south better? Equatorial ideal, for launching spacecraft?

Of course if you don't plan on achieving orbit maybe it doesn't matter. Right. The Wisconsin spaceport is intended only for suborbital spacecraft:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaceport_Sheboygan

Lower Launch Costs - Using Available Tech!

[StCredZero]

There are several things we could be doing to dramatically lower launch costs.

• Two Stage To Orbit - If done correctly, we can build one of these to operate like an airplane, instead of a munition. (See The Rocket Company for details. Single Stage To Orbit (SSTO) is right at the bleeding edge of our capabilities. But if we're willing to build big and build robustly, TSTO is doable with off-the shelf technology. (The fuel to get into space is not that much more expensive than the fuel to get a 747 over the Atlantic.)
• Modular Laser Launch - You can develop a laser module to launch a small unmanned test vehicle, then scale it up to launch useful payloads (5000 lbs) by building and combining multiple modules. When economies of scale kick in, you get launch costs that start to rival those hypothetical beanstalks.
• Rotovators that rendevous with a High Altitude Airplane - Again, it's hard to imagine a robust and reliable SSTO, but a Mach 12 high-altitude aircraft is much more reasonable. Also, a rotating tether that reaches only partly into the atmosphere and cancels only about half of orbital velocity can be built from materials that exist today! (Not unobtanium or carbon nanotubes.)
• A Lofstrom Loop - would also enable cheap access to space, and could be built with materials we have today. This is an arc that reaches above the atmosphere, suspended by the momentum of electromagnetically accelerated iron links. Vehicles would be launched into orbit by "stealing" a bit of the loop's momentum.

If we were really serious about lowering launch costs, we would be pouring money into researching these. But we're not. (Too easy to make money off the government doing what we're doing now.)