British entrepreneur Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic will set up its headquarters at a spaceport in New Mexico that will be built with state funds, Branson and the state’s governor announced on Wednesday.
The spaceport could be under construction in 2007 and open in late 2009 or early 2010. The company will send its initial flights up from Mojave, California.
”When the spaceport is built, we look forward to basing our world headquarters and United States operations and a fleet of up to five spaceships and a launch aircraft at the new facility,” Branson said in a joint statement with the state’s governor.
The company plans to send 50 000 customers into space in the first 10 years of operation from the world’s first purpose-built private spaceport, according to a joint announcement.
Virgin Galactic officials said 100 people already have paid $200 000 apiece to make the trip into space on two-and-a-half-hour flights that could begin as early as three years from now.
They include actress Victoria Principal, who called it ”an opportunity of a lifetime”.
The $225-million cost of the spaceport is to come from a combination of federal, state and local money, Governor Bill Richardson said.
”This investment in economic development and high-wage jobs will create a new industry that will transform the economy in southern New Mexico,” Richardson said.
A study by an aerospace industry consulting firm, Futron, indicated the annual economic impact of the spaceport in 2020 could be more than $750-million in total revenue and more than 3 500 jobs — including all service and manufacturing activities and tourist-related spending.
The governor said he plans to ask the state legislature in January for $100-million — to be generated from severance tax bonds — over three years to pay for spaceport infrastructure such as runways, roads, power lines, launch pads, a weather station and water and sewer systems.
Voters in southern New Mexico will be asked to approve local-option gross receipts taxes for the local contribution, said economic development secretary Rick Homans.
Homans said building the spaceport will lay the foundation ”for a whole new industry”.
”New Mexico will be the launch pad for America’s second space age, centred on private-sector innovations and personal space flight,” Homans said.
Branson — a colourful billionaire tycoon whose Virgin Group began as a record label — formed Virgin Galactic after SpaceShipOne, designed by Burt Rutan and funded by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, became the first privately manned rocket to reach space last year and went on to win the $10-million Ansari X Prize.
Virgin Galactic has made a deal with Rutan to build five spacecraft.
According to the company, as many as 38 000 people from 126 countries have put down deposits for a seat on one of the manned commercial flights.
The Virgin Galactic facility — most of it underground — will be part of the Southwest Regional Spaceport complex planned for a 69-square-kilometre site. It’s near the White Sands Missile Range — where, in 1945, the world’s first atomic bomb was tested and the US launched its first rocket.
Another British company, Starchaser Industries, has opened a Las Cruces office and says it plans to manufacture and test rockets and other space vehicles at the spaceport. — Sapa-AP