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

actually not bad

[TheSpengo]

That actually looks half decent. They got the 'ooo fancy' look down at any rate, we'll see about functionality. Still, it's more than NASA's done in the past 20 years. :P A lot of you are posting as if it were a small backwater project because it's based in new mexico, but if you think about it an isolated location is ideal for such an installment. If something goes wrong there is lots of big empty desert to crash into, no windows to break if for some reason you had to go supersonic speeds near the ground, and I imagine the noise level created as suborbital planes hit the boosters would not be appreciated in a densely populated area. Give this place half a chance and it might turn out pretty sweet!