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New Mexico authority lowers cost of spaceport

The New Mexico Spaceport Authority now estimates a state-backed spaceport will cost US$198 million, down from the previous estimate of US$225 million.

The spaceport board approved the estimate developed by a California firm hired to design the project at a meeting on Tuesday in Santa Fe.

The latest figure for Spaceport America was released in advance of an April 3 vote by Dona Ana County residents on a one-quarter percent sales tax to help pay for the facility, planned for an area off an interstate highway in Sierra County between the towns of Las Cruces and Truth or Consequences.

British entrepreneur Richard Branson has announced plans to base his space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, at the New Mexico spaceport and to launch manned flights on a suborbital spaceship by the end of the decade.

County money is essential for the port, said New Mexico Economic Development Secretary Rick Homans, port authority chairman.

The US$198 million will cover the cost of building a 3km-long runway, paving 60km of roads, building hangars and installing utilities.

Homans said the estimated budget was reduced after one of two runways was axed.

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson has touted the port as a way to develop a commercial space industry in the state.

Studies commissioned by the Economic Development Department said the project has the potential to create thousands of jobs and bring hundreds of millions of dollars to the state.

Meanwhile, a rocket developed by private satellite carrier SpaceX has been successfully launched from an island in the South Pacific, possibly paving the way for a new era of low-cost space-flight.

The Falcon 1 rocket took off from the US Kwajalein military base at around 6:10pm in the Marshall Islands on Tuesday, nearly one year after an unsuccessful earlier launch, Space Exploration Technologies (Space X) said.
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