New Mexico Considering Legislation To Sell Spaceport America

Image Credit: Spaceport America

The New Mexico legislature is currently considering legislation that would result in the sale of its Spaceport America. The bill, SB 267, moved from the Senate Corporations and Transportation Committee to the Senate Finance Committee in a vote yesterday. No hearing date on the legislation has been scheduled in the Finance Committee as of this writing.

The legislation is sponsored by Senator George K. Muoz, who didnt mince any words in a statement regarding the legislation.

Spaceport has one launch director. He probably plowed a lot of snow but hes never hit a launch button, he told the Committee.

The spaceport opened to a great deal of fanfare in 2011 with an eye to being a hub for space startups and tourism. SpaceX leases space there to conduct tests of its reusable rocket designs, and other small space startups like Armadillo Aerospace and UP Aerospace have conducted test flights at the facility.

The main draw for the spaceport, though, is its anchor tenant, Virgin Galactic, which plans to use the site for its tourist operations. However, the past few years have seen continuous delays in Virgins plans to get its space tourism operations off the ground. Those operations have been delayed even further by the the crash of its SpaceShipTwo last Fall.

There was a lot of hoopla before that if We build it, they will come, but its been several years now and nobodys shown up yet, Muoz said in his statement. New Mexican taxpayers are continuing to foot the bill for a $250 million empty facility that is providing the Legislature shaky operational information at best.

Senator Muoz also stated that he feels that Virgin Galactic is in violation of its lease.

Virgin Galactic emailed me the following statement on the matter:

Virgin Galactic remains fully committed to the efforts of NMSA and Spaceport America. We have made a lot of progress on the build of our second spaceship, and our plans for commercial operations remain the same: we will test in California and operate our spaceline from New Mexico. We signed a 20 year lease with the State and have been paying rent monthly since January 2013. We are committed to our New Mexico suppliers and New Mexico based staff and will continue to add both.

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New Mexico Considering Legislation To Sell Spaceport America