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Space Travel For the 1%: Virgin Galactic's $250,000 Tickets Haunt New Mexico Town
The Real Dr John writes: The Guardian has an article about Virgin Galactic's proposed launch site, Spaceport America, which broke ground in southern New Mexico's high desert in 2009 with almost a quarter of a billion dollars from taxpayers, $76m of which came from the two local counties. Truth or Consequences, population 6,000 and home to the Spaceport America Visitor Center, is one of the poorest places in the state. The increased taxes, adopted across impoverished Sierra County, contributed to about $5m as of 2014. Since 2009, state school budgets have been cut and an estimated $26m in necessary repairs to the town's water system has been put on hold. There's no more money to pay for it. The average annual income of residents is just $15,000 per year, one third of residents live below the poverty line, and just 20% over the age of 25 have obtained a bachelor's degree.
Why build it in New Mexico?
There's a local expertise with spaceflight that goes back to 1947.
lucm, indeed.
TFA doesn't explain or link as to how VG caused the citizens to vote a tax increase upon themselves. If that was the deal, I would have recommended against it. Especially the part about the schools and water system.
You know, I bet that wasn't the deal. I bet that closer to the truth, is that the town, county, and state fell all over themselves offering all kinds of crazy shit. Those people gambled, and they lost.
Sort of like Virgin Galactic lost their ship, momentum, place in the space race, shit tons of cash; and so on. I believe one of their people actually died. All those townspeople lost was their self respect, and maybe some money, that their elected officials spent. I don't think VG has made any sort of profit on this town.
So to make out like the evil corporation took advantage of the ignorant little podunk town is really stretching the truth here.
Spending money is one thing. Giving money to corporations in return for vague promises of jobs is entirely another.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
A spaceport that doesn't have any commercial flights is probably a worse waste of money than a sports stadium. People will drive for a hundred miles to go to a sporting event if they care about one of the teams playing. They'll buy gas, they'll buy food, they'll pay admissions, they'll go to the bars and the restaurants after the game, they might even look for a hotel to stay in before going home.
A spaceport in rural anywhere only makes sense when there are flights, and for it to be paid for by the taxes collected in an area the area needs to derive an actual benefit.
As for a town of 6000 with only 21% bachelors degrees, that is absolutely no surprise at all. A town of 6000 people probably doesn't have very many jobs that need bachelors degrees. There will be a doctor or maybe a few, there will be some nurses. There may be a dentist. There will be at least one pharmacist. If there are schools the teachers will have degrees. There will probably be a few business owners that originated in the area, left and got their education, and came back, possibly employing some in the town. If anything, 1/5 of a small town having bachelors degrees is probably rather high.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Yep. Nothing mean-spirited about letting people starve, go without medical care, or having knowledge of sexuality, not to mention the actuality of birth control, withheld from them. Not a thing. Nothing mean-spirited about trying to force your religion on the entire body politic, either. Nope. Nothing mean spirited about wasting all your time in congress on a futile task while there is actual work to be done. Nothing mean spirited about trying to shut down the government, either. Nothing mean spirited about lying, then bombing the living shit out of a country that doesn't pose a threat to us (well, they had oil, so I guess it was a work of charity for your fellow conservatives, deeply invested in oil, yes?) Nothing mean spirited about denying people social security, medicare, food stamps, and so on -- that is purely a saintly act from beginning to end. Nothing mean spirited about handing "free speech" to corporations, while herding the dissenters into "free speech zones", amirite?
Psychopath? Psychopath??? Oh hell no. Conservatives are the living incarnation of angels, each and every one.
Thank the Lord of Hosts that we have conservatives to save us from ourselves.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
If it worked as intended it would have been a good deal.
$65m in "stolen" money as you call it (taxes).
$250k tickets * say 10,000 = $2,500,000,000 into the net economy. Let's say that 15% of that is operations that's still $375m back into the economy in the form of wages. You aren't going to find a 576% investment opportunity very often.
Furthermore those people would probably want to eat somewhere while in town and maybe even visit a shop or two which would further boost the local economy.
It was a sound plan, and I'm sure virgin would very much like to be making a ton of money as well but the part that failed was the fact that they didn't have more protections for the county in the event that say.. a rocket exploded and the business plan was put on hold for 10 years.
We should maybe aspire to something greater than a 3000 year old model?
Sadly, most people think the big government they keep voting for is there to help them, not to help those who buy the politicians they vote for. With enemies like the left, the 1% don't need friends.
The average person cannot be fat, stupid, oblivious, trusting of advertising (and paid studies and other obviously biased sources), saturated in meaningless tabloid bullshit, and view non-job-related thought as tedium to be avoided or offloaded ... and then expect to have a truly representative government. It's never happened before and it's not happening today.
You may be surprised at how effective 3000 year old tactics still are. Bread-and-circus has many forms and it's at least that old. Oh yeah, speaking of the Roman empire? One of the major souces of corruption involved their equivalent of defense contracts. They had their own version of the military-industrial complex.