Article courtesy of the Las Cruces Bulletin
By Todd G. Dickson
Rick Homans, who starts his second stint as the New Mexico Spaceport Authority’s executive director this week, said the $198 million Spaceport America should be fully operational by mid-2011.
Speaking before the Greater Las Cruces Chamber of Commerce Thursday, June 24, at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum, Homans said a number of new potential tenants are interested in the spaceport.
Homans said new and existing aerospace companies are especially interested in the spaceport’s vertical launch area to develop new launch systems as NASA changes its focus.
The potential for new jobs and economic opportunity is what has always drawn him to the spaceport effort, Homans said.
“I’m absolutely honored to be back on the job,” he said.
But just as the spaceport authority still has many issues to work through to make Spaceport America operational, local businesses need to get ready as well, said Mark Butler, operations program manager for Virgin Galactic, Spaceport America’s anchor tenant.
“A lot of things need to happen,” Butler said of Virgin Galactic safety testing its newly developed spaceliner system. “But let’s say that if we start flying 18 months from now, a lot of supply chain issues need to be worked on now.”
That’s because, Butler emphasized, Virgin Galactic’s primary focus will be flying customers into suborbital space at $200,000 a ticket. With these people paying so much for their trips, Virgin Galactic can’t allow the cancellation of a single flight because of something as minor as a lack of spare parts, fuel or materials – let alone something as miniscule as running out of bolts, he said.
Local businesses need to realize that these new passengers aren’t just going to be coming for a quick flight and leave. It will be at least a two and- a-half-day stay during which the passengers will go through training to prepare them for their spaceflight experience.
That means hotel stays – nice hotels. Butler said he believes one nice hotel near the spaceport won’t be enough.
These customers will want to find fine dining, preferably food made with quality local ingredients. Their visits will require reliable transportation to and from the spaceport in the desert between Las Cruces and Truth or Consequences.
There will be a need to provide activities for friends and families of the passengers while they are going through their pre-flight training. Though local businesses should offer experiences for these accompanying families and friends. Butler admitted that a jaunt to Las Vegas, Nev., is not that far of a trip for them and will likely be a draw away from local sites.
There are many needs in the direct supply chain of the Virgin Galactic flight system that should preferably be made readily available locally, Butler said, such as repair materials for the specialized carbon fiber composite materials manufactured by Burt Rutan’s Scaled Composites operation in California.
Virgin’s owner, British billionaire Richard Branson, is requiring his network of companies to reduce its carbon footprint and be as ecologically sensitive as possible. Part of the philosophy includes having these kinds of resources close to operations, which requires less shipping, Butler said.
Each flight of the spaceliner will require the replacement of the hybrid rocket engine, fueled by specially shaped rubber particles and nitrous oxide. Having the manufacturing of those fuels locally would provide additional assurance as well as satisfy the company’s ecological desires.
Considering the money at stake, reliability of those suppliers also will be tantamount, he said.
Because Virgin Galactic’s primary mission is making sure the customers experience safe flights, Butler said the company isn’t interested in coming up with all the “trinkets” and mementos passengers will want to take home from their trip. That is another opportunity for local businesses, he said.
Since Virgin Galactic is an international company, all of its American employees will have be U.S. citizens to comply with international trade agreements, he noted.
These are some of the reasons why the chamber has created a working group for the spaceport, said Wayne Savage, who chairs the committee. Butler’s talk gave some insight to kinds of jobs and money the spaceport could bring to the region, he said.
“We haven’t seen this kind of a catalyst for the local economy since the creation of White Sands Missile Range,” Savage said.
