Billionaire Richard Branson has looked out at the bleak and featureless expanse of the New Mexico desert. What he sees is the perfect spot on which to build the future. He plans to build a $198 million launch complex that would blast paying tourists into space. What do you think of that? Time will tell whether other people around there share his vision or not. It would be called Spaceport America and would be funded by the state, local, and federal money. He hopes to have the first rocket flights in 2009 and would initially be suborbital trips that would offer five minutes of weightlessness at about $200,000 per person. Eventually they plan to offer trips into orbit and beyond. Southern New Mexico is poor ranching country and some say they have no intention of paying for some rich people's thrills.
The 27-square-mile site, near White Sands Missile Range, where the U.S. launched its first rocket after World War II, would include a 10,000 foot runway with adjoining terminals and hangars. This big runway would be able to handle the kinds of planes that take spaceships up to 60,000 feet, where they could then be launched. Time will tell if this materializes.
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