The passage of a tax this week could mean that a humble New Mexico city known for being named after a Fifties game show could instead be viewed as the doorstop to space travel. Much to the relief of Spaceport America supporters, Sierra County, anchored by the city Truth or Consequences, approved a quarter of 1 percent spaceport tax on Tuesday.
A tax had already been approved by Doña Ana County voters last year. (Las Cruces is the largest city in Doña Ana County.) This week’s vote is crucial because two local governments must approve the tax before a spaceport district can be formed, the tax collected and revenues spent. The spaceport site is in a very, very sparsely populated area of southern Sierra County.
The 1 percent tax equates to about $2.3 million the county would contribute toward the spaceport, whereas Doña Ana County’s bite is $49 million. Otero County will be asked to pass a tax in November.
Once it is built, the spaceport is expected to draw aerospace companies that would pay user fees and other costs to launch from the site. Spaceport-related businesses would also locate in the area, bringing with them high-tech jobs.
Spaceport America is scheduled to open by early 2010, but it still has some hurdles to overcome. Construction has not yet begun and some of its funding depends on time-sensitive conditions being met: that the spaceport cost less than $225 million, that the state have a contract in place with an anchor tenant company for the spaceport and that the spaceport authority be granted a license from the Federal Aviation Administration.
The same three conditions apply to a pool of about $67 million from the state Legislature.
The New Mexico state Legislature committed $100 million of the allocated $140 million to the Spaceport Authority in 2006, but it imposed three conditions that must be met by the end of this year or the money reverts back to the state. The conditions were subsequently lifted from one-third of the money or $33 million, but still apply to the remaining $67 million.
To date, a cost estimate under $225 million for the facility’s construction is the only condition that has been met. The spaceport is counting on Britain-based Virgin Galactic as its anchor tenant but its president Will Whitehorn said the company needs to see progress this year or its may go elsewhere to build the spaceport.
The company wants to base its international operations at the spaceport, where it will send space tourists on two-hour suborbital trips at a cost of $200,000 per passenger. The company has invested millions to develop the vehicles it hopes to use at the spaceport.
"We want to see if this is going to get built,” Whitehorn said.. “If it doesn’t get built here, we will go somewhere else but that would be a shame. I think we’d like to operate here.”
Other cities, such as one near Culbertson, in west Texas, are also considering building spaceports.