 The question is, how big a setback?
A co-pilot, Michael Alsbury, died in the crash of SpaceShipTwo, and the pilot,
Peter Siebold, was severely injured.
“I’m very concerned about what kind of effect this will have on New Mexico and
the Spaceport,” said state Rep. Luciano “Lucky” Varela, D-Santa Fe, and chairman
of the influential Legislative Finance Committee. “The whole issue about the
Spaceport is something we’re going to have to keep our eyes on.”
As the National Transportation Safety Board combs over the wreckage in Mojave,
Calif., questions about the financial sustainability of Spaceport come into
sharper focus.
Virgin Galactic is the futuristic facility’s anchor tenant and its owner,
British billionaire Richard Branson, has had to push back the date for the
company’s plans for an inaugural launch numerous times, even before Friday’s
crash.
“Many people expected this vehicle to already be flying 10 passengers and
generating revenue out there,” said Greg Autry, an assistant professor at the
Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California who has
followed and studied the nascent commercial space industry. “Clearly this is
going to delay the operation of this vehicle at least a year, I believe, maybe
longer. And that’s got to be a huge problem for Spaceport America.”
Just last week, Spaceport executives told members of the state’s Legislative
Finance Committee the facility could face a $1.5 million budget shortfall in
fiscal 2015 if Virgin Galactic didn’t start sending customers into suborbital
space by next July.
Under the terms of its contract, Virgin will pay the Spaceport Authority between
$25,000 and $75,000 per launch. Early in the project, Branson predicted a couple
of launches per week, with the number rising to 700 per year by 2015 from
Spaceport America,in the remote desert of southern New Mexico just west of the
White Sands Missile Range.
New Mexico Watchdog left a message with Spaceport America executive director
Christine Anderson on Monday morning to get more information on the potential
$1.5 million shortfall but has not received a call back.
Monday morning, Anderson posted Spaceport’s monthly newsletter on the facility’s
website. She made no mention of financial challenges posed after Friday’s crash,
writing, “The coming months will be challenging but this is but a speed bump in
this incredible journey. We must maintain our resolve, purpose and resiliency as
we chart the course ahead.” Click here to read the entire five-paragraph
statement.
“If this thing doesn’t get assured to the public that, despite what happened
over the weekend, (Spaceport officials) can establish a practical and workable
Spaceport program, taxpayers aren’t going to be all that enthusiastic about it,”
Varela told New Mexico Watchdog. “I hope we can resolve it.”
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 After $218.5 million in sunk costs, state and local officials —
especially in towns and counties near Spaceport — hope the
investment will still pay off.
Asked if Friday’s crash has shaken the confidence of locals, Bruce
Swingle, county manager in Sierra County said, “I hope not. This is
a big deal for this region … I believe (Spaceport) will pan out. I
don’t think interest is eroding.”
“We’ve made a huge investment out there,” said state Senate Pro Tem
Mary Kay Papen, D-Las Cruces. “We can’t just say, ‘One crash, so
King’s X.’ I just don’t think we can do that.”
USC’s Autry thinks commercial space still has a robust future.
“This market exists,” Autry said. “In the early years, the Wright
Brothers crashed and that wasn’t the end of the aviation industry …
This won’t be the end of the commercial space industry.”
While Virgin Galactic, led by the flamboyant Branson, is in many
ways the face of Spaceport America, it’s not the site’s only
high-profile tenant.
Another billionaire, Elon Musk, signed a three-year lease last year
with Spaceport to test reusable rockets for his SpaceX venture and,
according to Anderson, has already spent $2 million in
infrastructure improvements.
UP Aerospace is also a paying customer at Spaceport and, just days
before the Virgin Galactic accident, a Tucson-based company called
World View Enterprises, entered negotiations with Spaceport
officials. World View intends on sending customers 20 miles into the
stratosphere in cutting-edge balloons.
“We’re on the cusp of this next generation of transportation for
humans,” Anderson told New Mexico Watchdog in an interview last
month, confident that state taxpayers will see a return on their
investment. “We appreciate the advancement the people of New Mexico
made in us and we’re trying to make it a success.”
“It’s too early to tell,” Varela said. “It depends on what extent
the public accepts it and utilizes it. We’ve looked at horizontal
launches, we’ve looked at vertical launches and any other uses of
the Spaceport … In the environment we’re in right now, it’s
questionable to what extent it will benefit New Mexico.”
“It may be an asset that could be very hard to pay back,” said
Autry. “But now that you have one, I would do what you could to help
Virgin at this point and make your investment turn out to have some
value. I would not dismiss this as an unsalvageable investment at
this point. I think they’re going to get it together.”
[This
article courtesy of
Watchdog.]
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