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Spaceport America Loses $1.7 Million Due To Virgin Galactic Delays
An anonymous reader writes "Officials of New Mexico's Spaceport Authority were grilled by lawmakers about the now vacant Spaceport America following the deadly crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo. The spaceport was built as a hub for commercial space flights. Its immediate future is uncertain since Virgin Galactic has indefinitely pushed back the launch date of its space tourism flights. From the article: "Christine Anderson, the authority's executive director, learned last week that she might have to do so one legislator at a time. Anderson was called out by Rep. Patricia Lundstrom, D-Gallup, for handing members of an interim legislative finance committee a presentation filled mostly with photographs. Lundstrom and other lawmakers wanted hard numbers and more details about what plan the authority has to get past the Virgin Galactic mishap and get the taxpayer-financed spaceport off the ground. 'It just made all of us look like idiots, like we don't do our homework,' Anderson said. 'That's not the case whatsoever.'"
...you get sliced from time to time.
While I commend New Mexico for their efforts toward making it possible to push the limits, this was bound to happen. On top of that, if they're balking at $1.7 million , how do they feel about their other budget line-items, like their schools that probably exceed a couple- billion dollars spent?
I don't know New Mexico's budget off the top of my head, but I do know that in my state, the largest school district's budget is somewhere between $600 and $700 million dollars, for about 65,000 students. There are upwards of a hundred school districts, and the education budget is something like 70% of the state's annual expenditure. $1.7 million dollars on the scale of a state budget is almost down to rounding-error money.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
This is funny. So is this!
So much for the great Private Space Migration that's to come, eh you space whackjobs?
So...a Spaceport built essentially for SpaceShipOne is delayed because there is no more SpaceShipOne and these morons want to know what the plan is. Is the co-pilot even in the ground yet?
Sounds like just some kind of political grudge.
Wait, they built a publicly funded spaceport in a time where we don't have any real space flights to speak of and none of any consequence really on the near term horizon and they claim that they aren't idiots? I mean, sure, they took a big risk that, if it paid out, could have made them more of a "space travel hub" instead of a cactus state, but that risk was akin to playing and hoping to win the lottery.
death, the future of space tourism, hundreds of millions of dollars
but what really* matters here is that some state pols got a little
egg on their faces and someone is gonna have to pay dearly
Despite the typical 'government is acting bad' attitude that persists here it is a valid question. NM, one of the poorest stats in the country, levied taxes specifically to support this. Now the whole thing is in question. VGs future is in question despite what they are telling the press. And they are at least 5, probably closer to 10 years behind schedule. The question of continued costs and funding is valid.
Why is the government even involved in this ?
Is this the equivalent Spacegate?
So, on one side you have FAA and other aviation regulators saying it might take two years to find out what went wrong. On the other you have "legislators" demanding that the space port be used. What do they want exactly?
See, in today's political climate here in the states, the electorate basis their opinions on soundbites spoon fed to them by the media.
In the case of government finances, all they hear is little things that are put across as 'waste' or are told about complete myths - like the mythical welfare queen driving around in her pink Cadillac.
In the meantime, real problems that are looming are ignored - like the fact that Social Security and Medicare are projected to increase dramatically in the next 20 or so years because of our aging population. (CBO).
We are stuck in the Middle East because of our oil policiy - oil is a strategic resource - see Carter Doctrine. That costs us about $150 billion a year. Nobody bitches because for one, some people are getting very wealthy off of our misguded Middle East policy that will doom future generations to terrorism.
And we have too many people who get off on "American exceptionalism" and beleive the propaganda that we are over there fighty for "Truth, Justice and the American Way" - while invading and occupying countries.
But, our electorate just keeps the TV on and watches crap and is misinformed - sorry, but Jon Stewart falls in there.
Until people start asking, "Who gives a shit?"; "Why?"; and "in the grand scheme of things, is this issue really that important?" we will continue with business as usual.
Not unheard of in such things, really. If you're not prepared to push through some bad times, forget about it. Either push on or leave it. I still think VG is hardly more than a stunt for the rich (and a dangerous one too) but you're not going to dunk even your toes into space without running into problems now and then, often producing lots of debris... and costs.
Seems to me obviously Spaceport has only one company. If Dallas Airport had only one airline that flew only one type of airplane, and if structural failure accident occurred, the entire airport will be shutdown for a long time.
mfwright@batnet.com