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

ha!

[thatskinnyguy]

Spaceports instead of airports?! Where the hell is my flying car?! It's the 21st Century for God sake! I was promised flying cars!

Anybody else

[sirknz]

Get the mental image of it looking like a run down backwater airport in about 20 years time?

Re:Anybody else

[ashitaka]

Dibs on being the first to say:

"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious."

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.

The real question

[Weaselmancer]

Can they get a killer whale to the moon?

My first thought...

[Hawthorne01]

"What a piece of junk!"

"She made not look like much, kid, but she's got it where it counts. I made a lot of special modifications myself, but if you don't mind, we're in a bit of a hurrry, so..."

New Mexico has a Spaceport Authority?

[Pinkfud]

When did that happen? Well, I guess since they have Roswell, it makes sense.

Note on the photo....

[daemonenwind]

...the planned gardens around the disk-like space terminal will be exquisite, keeping dozens of local workers employed on a daily basis.

(yeah, I know I'm going to hell for that one)

Wisconsin?

[NotQuiteReal]

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.

IANARS

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

Re:actually not bad

[tompaulco]

And in 30 years the success of he spaceport will have launched an industrious little town surrounding it, and then developers will come in and build houses right next to it, and people will move in, and complain about the noise, and get the spaceport successfully shut down.

Re:I think not...

[Max Littlemore]

Pffffft. You're a crackpot. The Nazca Lines wasn't a commercial spaceport, it was run by a not for profit collective.

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.)

Docking Bay 94

[40ozFreak]

Finally I've got a place to park the Millenium Falcon when I need to run out to Toshii station and pick up power converters.