Las Cruces Development News

[desertpunk]

Spaceport America aerial view June 24

image hosted on flickr

Virgin Galactic's 'Cosmoport' by Clashmaker, on Flickr

image hosted on flickr

Spaceport America by Clashmaker, on Flickr

[desertpunk]

Las Cruces Sun-News

White Sands role ends as spaceflight shifts to tourism, new spaceport
By Diana M. Alba DALBA@LCSUN-NEWS.COM
Posted: 07/09/2011


Space Shuttle Columbia (STS-3) lands at White Sands

LAS CRUCES - One spacecraft runway's sunset may be another's sunrise.

White Sands Space Harbor, a backup U.S. space shuttle landing site since the '80s, will start decommissioning this year, with the end of the space shuttle program. But just a few dozen miles away, nearly due west across a mountain range, is a spacecraft runway that was formally dedicated for the first time last October.

The 10,000-foot, concrete airway is one of the main features of the under-construction Spaceport America, about 45 miles north of Las Cruces.

Just as the harbor was instrumental in sending dozens of government-sponsored astronauts to space, Spaceport America proponents contend that facility eventually will open up the door to space travel to the average person. And they hail the project as part of the next era of spaceflight.

The taxpayer-financed, $209 million spaceport is planned as a launch and landing site for suborbital space tourists, who'll be carried aloft by the Britain-based Virgin Galactic. The company's contractor is developing the two-vehicle system in Mojave, Calif.

NASA officials last week highlighted the commercial space industry as a means for human spaceflight to continue in the absence of the shuttle program, which will end later this month with the return of Atlantis to Earth.

"Spaceport America definitely represents the future of space travel," said New Mexico Spaceport Authority board member Scott Krahling. "Private companies are slowly preparing themselves to take over spaceflight, and that's a good thing."

Virgin Galactic is one of a number of companies venturing into the suborbital spaceflight business through vehicle development. Others, however have their sites set on orbital launches, something not possible yet at Spaceport America because of regulatory and physical challenges, experts have said.

Virgin Galactic has said it's ramping up staffing in preparation for the move to New Mexico and eventual operations. Flights may not start until 2013, spaceport and Virgin Galactic officials have said.

In addition to Virgin Galactic, the Texas-based Armadillo Aerospace was awarded NASA funds for low-orbit vertical launches, said David Wilson, spokesman for Spaceport America. One launch happened earlier this year, while two or three more are slated. It's a sign of the shift toward commercialized spaceflight, he said.

"Everybody is interested in how this is going to be privatized," he said. "Spaceport America is going to be very active there."

Rono Danakili, 57, a Do-a Ana Community College student who hopes to eventually become a technician at the spaceport, said a paradigm shift is occurring, and one sign is the growing attendance at an international spaceflight symposium that takes place annually in Las Cruces.

"Whatever is happening, it's snowballing," said Danakili, who plans to graduate next spring with an aerospace technology degree.

"I'm all for that because the private sector, more so than the government, is more one of simplicity and efficiency."

Construction

Though the runway is finished, construction of the spaceport's $32.5 million terminal-hangar is behind schedule. It was supposed to be completed by December 2010. Contractors have complained of late payments and cost overruns.

The state has caught up to speed on paying the primary contractors, Wilson said Friday. He said subcontractors' payments are the purview of primary contractors.

Krahling, also a Do-a Ana County commissioner, said there are kinks in any new project. But the payment situation has been resolved, he said.

"I think everybody's caught up on payment," he said. "Hopefully things are running a bit smoother now."

Kent Evans, a spaceport supporter and former member of the county commission, said he's concerned the overall spaceport project might lose momentum because of recent problems. It's edge in the industry stems from "getting established, being first and having things actually happening," he said.

"I just think that the spaceport is the catalyst that's going to cause all that to come together and go forward, and I don't want that to fall apart."

The spaceport's first phase, which includes both the runway and terminal-hangar, was 87 percent finished on Friday, said Christine Anderson, executive director for Spaceport America.

Spaceship

SpaceShipTwo - the vehicle that will hold space tourists - had logged 15 glide flights through June 27, according to Scaled Composites, contractor for Virgin Galactic. It must move to powered flights, something dependent upon a rocket motor now in development.

Krahling said the involvement of the private sector in commercial space access will lead to a "more successful industry."

"It's going to happen," he said. "It's a matter of where and when."

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[desertpunk]

Las Cruces Ranks 14th In Small Metro Business Climate

Las Cruces earns Top 20 spot on Forbes' best list (10 a.m.)Sun-News report
Posted: 07/12/2011 10:06:15 AM MDT

LAS CRUCES - Forbes Magazine ranks Las Cruces No. 14 on its "Best Small Places for Business and Careers" list.

The rankings look at cities from across the U.S. and are based on 12 areas relating to past and future projected job growth, business and living costs, income growth, education and projected economic growth. Quality of life areas such as crime rate, cultural and recreational opportunities and net migration patterns are also factors in determining the rankings.

Las Cruces' metro area, with a population of 210,000, previously made the list four times before from 2002-2005. Manhattan, Kan., is ranked No. 1 on the list.

Forbes also released a list of "The Best Places For Business" without regard to city size. The top city on that list Raleigh, N.C. El Paso checks in at No. 36 while Forbes ranks Albuquerque No. 36 on that list. Las Cruces was not in the Top 50 of that list.

Forbes reports that "For the most active areas of job creation (and lower costs of doing business) you have to go to the heartland, home to 80 percent of the top 25 regions on our list of Best Places for Business.

"In most of these hot hubs you'll find a strong university or two, providing rich cultural life and the kind of technology transfer that sparks entrepreneurial activity - giving that educated population lots of reasons to stick around."

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[desertpunk]

Spaceport update: June 20

image hosted on flickr

SpacePort_tour_06092011_32 by chad.person, on Flickr

image hosted on flickr

SpacePort_tour_06092011_31 by chad.person, on Flickr

image hosted on flickr

SpacePort_tour_06092011_29 by chad.person, on Flickr

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SpacePort_tour_06092011_24 by chad.person, on Flickr

image hosted on flickr

SpacePort_tour_06092011_22 by chad.person, on Flickr

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SpacePort_tour_06092011_19 by chad.person, on Flickr

image hosted on flickr

SpacePort_tour_06092011_15 by chad.person, on Flickr

[desertpunk]

...

[desertpunk]

Barnes And Noble update

Exterior work is complete and the interior is progressing. Completion of the 45,000 sq. ft. bookstore is expected by early August. It is the city's second Barnes and Noble.


nmsu

[desertpunk]

NMSU Fine Arts Building live webcam shot

[desertpunk]

El Paso Times

Work starts on Union Pacific New Mexico project
by Vic Kolenc \ El Paso Times
Posted: 08/07/2011 09:18:40 AM MDT

image hosted on flickr

Union Pacific Global III Intermodal Facility by john-trautschold, on Flickr
A Union Pacific intermodal facility in Joliet IL. The Santa Teresa facility will echo this layout.

Dirt work has begun on Union Pacific's $400 million rail facility in Santa Teresa -- a project that an economic developer calls a "game changer" for the area.

New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and Union Pacific CEO Jim Young are scheduled to be in Santa Teresa on Monday morning for a ceremony Union Pacific has billed as a "construction launch."

While dirt is already being moved, laying tracks and other construction work aren't expected to start in earnest until a general contractor is selected, reported Zoe Richmond, the railroad's public affairs director for New Mexico. "We hope to have a contractor selected by September," she said. Construction is expected to take about four years and create 3,000 construction jobs.

The facility, projected to open in 2015, will be located on 2,200 acres near Santa Teresa Airport and two industrial parks owned by Verde Realty, a company founded in El Paso but now headquartered in Houston.

The project's centerpiece is a large intermodal yard and intermodal ramp where trucks will pick up and deliver railroad containers that will carry products and materials to worldwide destinations for manufacturers and other companies located on both sides of the border.

The intermodal facility will be the biggest one Union Pacific will have along the United States-Mexico border, Richmond said. It will be substantially larger than the one the railroad now operates in East El Paso, and it will have "state of the art" equipment and technology, she said. "This will allow us to get more aggressive in bringing more customers on the railroad," she said. "We're landlocked in El Paso."

Aaron Hunt, a Union Pacific spokesman, said the railroad plans to close its El Paso intermodal facility when Santa Teresa opens, but, he said, the company plans to keep its operations in Downtown El Paso.

Some of the railroad's 400 El Paso employees will be moved to Santa Teresa when that facility opens, Richmond said. The facility is expected to be home for 600 employees by 2025, when it's projected to reach its traffic capacity.

Jerry Pacheco, executive director of the International Business Accelerator in Santa Teresa, which helps draw companies to New Mexico, called the Union Pacific project the most important project for the Santa Teresa area since the international port of entry opened there in 1993.

"This is a game changer," Pacheco said. "That type of operation will bring in other companies that parlay out of products coming in" and out of the facility, he said.

"We already are receiving phone calls from companies" with possible interest in locating in Santa Teresa because of the Union Pacific facility, Pacheco said. Warehousing and logistics firms are interested. Manufacturing firms on both sides of the border also would benefit from having a large intermodal facility located near their doorsteps, he said.

Most companies probably won't make a move until the rail facility is ready to open, Pacheco said. However, one medium-sized company is already close to making a decision to put a distribution facility in Santa Teresa because of the Union Pacific project, he said. The company's name cannot yet be divulged, he said.

Foxconn, a multibillion-dollar, Taiwan-based electronics manufacturing company already has a huge, multi-building campus with 5,500 employees in San Jeronimo, Mexico, near the Santa Teresa port of entry, where it assembles thousands of Dell computers, laptops and servers each day.

Union Pacific's Richmond said the new rail facility will provide Foxconn some shipping opportunities.

But Pancho Uranga, a Foxconn executive who oversees its Juárez area operations, said the Union Pacific facility won't help Foxconn until the railroad can get shipments from West Coast ports to Santa Teresa as fast as trucks can.

Union Pacific's shipping cost is better than trucking, Uranga said. However, "until railroad service can compete time-wise with trucking, we would not use rail," Uranga said.

Union Pacific has been trying to win Foxconn's business, and railroad representatives have said they are working on the time issue, he said.

The Union Pacific facility will add to the Santa Teresa area's attractiveness for companies on both sides of the border, Uranga said. If the Santa Teresa airport is upgraded to handle cargo shipments, and with the new rail facility, the Santa Teresa area would become the most competitive area along the border for manufacturing-related companies to locate, he said.

Richmond said Union Pacific expects the new intermodal facility to attract warehousing, distribution and manufacturing companies to Santa Teresa as similar projects in other areas have drawn companies.

Union Pacific recently opened an intermodal facility in Joliet, Ill., a Chicago suburb, and Home Depot is now building a distribution center there, Richmond noted

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[desertpunk]

Bloomberg

Spaceflights From New Mexico Desert Depend on New Jobs
By Ryan Mac - Aug 8, 2011



The frontier of commercial spaceflight, which opened when NASA’s shuttle program ended this month, is taking shape in an unfinished assembly of metal, glass and concrete that resembles a rust-colored stingray burrowed halfway into New Mexico’s desert.

“Spaceport America” bills itself online as “the world’s first purpose-built commercial spaceport” and will be the official home of Virgin Galactic, billionaire Richard Branson’s venture that proposes to take tourists into suborbital space. It’s about 75 miles southwest of the Trinity atomic-bomb test site where the U.S. ushered in the nuclear age 66 years ago.

It’s even closer to the mobile home of Florita Munoz in Rincon, New Mexico. Munoz, 69, says she has little regard for this latest attempt to enter a new era. The 4-year-old project has already cost her state, the 10th poorest in the U.S., $209 million in public money. It’s at least nine months behind schedule and its director says it won’t generate as many jobs as backers once claimed.

“There’s a lot of people that are having a hard time making a living, and I think they should have concentrated on the people more than the spaceport,” said Munoz, who lives off her deceased husband’s $25,000 annual pension.

President Barack Obama has used the end of the shuttle program to call for expanding commercial spaceflight. Spaceport America -- which has hit snags in its plans to accommodate NASA- style orbital launches, to attract an aerospace plant and even to hold competitions of a nascent “Rocket Racing League” -- shows some of the challenges ahead for space-age investors, be they private or public.

‘Think in Decades’

“You have to think in decades” to comprehend the benefits of spaceport development, said Derek Webber, a director of Spaceport Associates, a consulting firm. Webber, a former satellite and launch vehicle engineer for aerospace companies, is a self-described advocate of space tourism. While New Mexico’s project is “a bold first attempt,” he said, any return on its investment may be several years away. “Is it reasonable for them to be skeptical?” he said. “Of course it is.”

Former Governor Bill Richardson, a Democrat, championed the project and the state legislature approved it in 2007, after a pair of economic-impact studies predicted it would create as many as 3,460 jobs. Voters in Sierra County, where the spaceport is located, and Dona Ana County, where Munoz lives, voted in local taxes to help finance its construction.

‘Feel-good Plan’

Now, Governor Susana Martinez, a Republican who replaced Richardson in January, has ordered an audit of the spaceport’s spending and said the facility must secure private investment to augment the public money. Spaceport director Christine Anderson, who took charge in February, disavows the earlier job projections, calling them a “feel-good plan.”

She’s working to update them, she said -- reducing tourism numbers, launch counts and revenue projections to “more conservative” figures. The new estimates aren’t yet available.

Richardson, who called the project his “legacy,” said he remains confident. “Well, it’s going to revive the economy of Southern New Mexico,” he said in a telephone interview. “It’ll be a linchpin not just for jobs but science education and technology companies to come to the area.”

He predicted “worldwide attention” for the first launch, and said he hopes to be among the first travelers, though he hasn’t reserved a ticket with Virgin. “I hope they give me a discount,” he said.

Missed Deadline

“Expected Completion: Early 2011,” reads a sign on the spaceport’s freshly paved access road. Work on the 110,000- square-foot terminal and hangar continues, punctuated by whirring drills and beeping cranes. The construction has created about 800 jobs at the site in New Mexico’s Jornada Del Muerto Desert. The name means “Journey of the Dead.”

At some point -- it’s not clear when -- plans call for this to be the point of departure for journeys of the rich: Virgin Galactic’s suborbital tourism flights, at $200,000 per passenger. It’s company policy not to announce dates for completion, said George Whitesides, Virgin Galactic’s chief executive officer.

The company has a 20-year lease with Spaceport America that commences once the facility is completed. Over the full term, the agreement is expected to generate $150 million to $250 million for the spaceport, said Aaron Prescott, the facility’s business operations manager.

Taking Reservations

Virgin already has 440 people signed up for its flights, said Whitesides, a former chief of staff at NASA who said he’s on the list of signees himself. He said his company was attracted to New Mexico by its 330 days of clear weather for launches; its high elevation, which limits fuel costs; and its New Jersey-sized chunk of restricted airspace, shared with the adjacent White Sands Missile Range.

“Of course, the fourth reason is that the state is building a spaceport,” Whitesides said.

Virgin will have spent $300 million in research and development by the time its SpaceShipTwo is ready for service, he said. Finishing the craft, which is about the size of a midsize corporate jet and seats eight including the crew, will take another year or two, he said. Virgin does not yet have a commercial launch license from the Federal Aviation Administration.

When it opens for business, the company will send as many as 500 people into suborbital space in the first year, Whitesides said. SpaceShipTwo would be taken 50,000 feet into the air by a carrier craft called WhiteKnightTwo.

Six Minutes

At that height, the smaller ship would detach and use its own engines to climb to more than 62 miles above Earth’s surface -- the common definition of when space begins, and still miles below orbital altitude. Passengers will have six minutes of weightlessness before the ship returns to Spaceport America, where it would glide to a landing on the 2-mile runway.

Virgin would market services beyond tourism, such as research opportunities and atmospheric testing, Whitesides said. Over time, the cost of a flight should decrease, he said, comparing suborbital tourism to early transatlantic flights, which cost passengers thousands of dollars when adjusted for inflation. “Now you can fly across the Atlantic for 400 bucks,” he said.

For the time being at least, it’s not lost on local residents like Ray Lind that Spaceport America will largely cater to Branson’s wealthy customers.

Rich Man’s ‘Boondoggle’

“The taxpayers pay to build a spaceport for an enormously rich man and he’s going to be flying people into space at what, $200,000 a shot?” said Lind, a repossession man for Roadrunner Collateral Recovery in Las Cruces, about 45 miles south of the facility. He called the project a “boondoggle.”

Anderson said the spaceport will also focus on education and research. To date, it has played host to 12 vertical launches of suborbital research rockets, grossing “a few thousand dollars per launch,” Prescott said. The facility will be open for tours by those who won’t be flying; visitor centers are planned for nearby towns as well.

Pat Hynes, who heads a NASA-backed space education program called the New Mexico Space Grant Consortium, said the spaceport would benefit the community. Between references to Robert Goddard and Wernher von Braun, two pioneers of modern rocketry who both worked in New Mexico, she traced the idea of building the facility to the Kennedy administration. “It’s our heritage as much as chili is,” Hynes said.

Goddard and Von Braun

While Goddard, von Braun and other 20th Century rocketeers valued New Mexico’s location for their experiments, the fact that it’s far from any large body of water makes Spaceport America unsuitable for large, NASA-style orbital launches, given current technology. That’s because detachable booster rockets need safe places to fall -- and that means oceans.

“Ventures looking to do orbital launches at this time, unless they have reusable launch vehicle technology that can get around some of the range issues would not be able to use Spaceport America right now,” said John Foust, a senior analyst at Futron Corp., a Bethesda, Maryland-based consultant that prepared one of the early economic-impact studies.

Futron’s 2005 report, which predicted as many as 3,460 jobs and $460 million in economic activity by 2015, was based in part on the assumption that some orbital launches would be possible. The study, which was funded by the state Economic Development Department, contemplated that at least one aerospace company capable of carrying NASA payloads into orbit would set up shop near the spaceport.

[...]

[desertpunk]

Las Cruces Sun News

Virgin Galactic to carry researchers for NASA
(4:05 p.m.)Sun-News report
Posted: 08/10/2011



LAS CRUCES - Virgin Galactic announced Wednesday it was chosen by NASA to carry scientists and their technology experiments to suborbital space.
The space tourism company plans to eventually launch suborbital spaceflights from Spaceport America, just north of Doña Ana County.

"This arrangement marks the first time that NASA has contracted with a commercial partner to provide flights into space on a suborbital spacecraft and represents another important endorsement of the value of regular commercial space access for a wide range of science and educational applications," Virgin Galactic said in a news release.

NASA's Flight Opportunities Program, managed out of NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in Edwards, Calif., announced the awards, according to the company. Through this program, NASA has already arranged the flight of several scientific payloads on low-altitude rockets.

Virgin Galactic's two-vehicle system - a spaceship launched from a plane - is in development at Mojave, Calif. by the company Scaled Composites. According to a log, 15 glide flights of the spaceliner, SpaceShipTwo, had been completed through June 27.

SpaceShipTwo is the "only crewed suborbital vehicle in flight test today," Virgin Galactic said. The company "offers a significantly larger cabin than any other company taking deposits today, allowing for unique technology demonstrations and research," according to the news release.

In February, Virgin Galactic announced it signed a contract with a private, nonprofit research group to fly two researchers and their payloads to space. The group planned to buy six additional tickets.
In all, 445 future passengers have booked flights and made deposits totaling about $55 million, according to Virgin Galactic.

State economic development Secretary-designate Jon Barela, whose agency is connected to Spaceport America, said Tuesday that construction on the facility is about 90 percent finished.

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[elmwood]

Originally Posted by desertpunk

It would have been nice if you had a cite and provided a link for my photo, like you did with the Flickr shots.

[desertpunk]

Originally Posted by elmwood

It would have been nice if you had a cite and provided a link for my photo, like you did with the Flickr shots.

My apologies. It was taken from the web. I'll remove it immediately!

[elmwood]

No need to delete it. Just a link in the future, as with the photos from Flickr.

Thanks for maintaining this thread. It's a better way to keep up with development in Cruces than checking out the Sun-News site every so often.

Any word on new urbanism or traditional neighborhood design-based projects in the area? Looks like the University Avenue Corridor Plan was never really implemented, and the idea of contemporary urbanism of any kind seems to be ignored by the powers that be.

[desertpunk]

Originally Posted by elmwood

No need to delete it. Just a link in the future, as with the photos from Flickr.

Thanks for maintaining this thread. It's a better way to keep up with development in Cruces than checking out the Sun-News site every so often.

Any word on new urbanism or traditional neighborhood design-based projects in the area? Looks like the University Avenue Corridor Plan was never really implemented, and the idea of contemporary urbanism of any kind seems to be ignored by the powers that be.

Thanx! I'm out of town and on a slow connection. When I get back I'll restore the pic properly linked and credited. Right now Las Cruces is in Mayoral elections so when they get a new Mayor, there could be some progress on things like the University Corridor Plan. It's funny that New Urbanist ideas haven't sunk in yet given the problems with water on the East Mesa and the rapidly increasing congestion on city streets. The default setting for Las Cruces seems to be whatever is happening in places like Summerlin Nevada. But I'm just happy that the horrible comprehensive plan from the 1980s is being abandoned. That plan featured gridded boulevards like Albuqurque's all the way to the Organ Mts. !

-btw, the Sun News just went paywall so after the first 5 articles, it's pay up time.

[desertpunk]

Here's a Census Bureau twinpak:

Census reveals New Mexico's hottest markets for housing projects

Albuquerque is tops in New Mexico in 2010 residential construction valuation at more than $304 million, ranking No. 74 out of 366 metros studied. Las Cruces is next with almost $166 million (No. 115), followed by Farmington at almost $44 million (No. 261) and Santa Fe at almost $13 million, (No. 345).

[...]

Census: 65 markets suffer construction declines of more than 75 percent

Albuquerque just missed the 75 percent threshold, coming in at a decline of 74.94 percent, from 7,038 units authorized in 2005 to 1,764 in 2010.

Las Cruces fared slightly better, coming in at a decline of 61.21 percent, from 2,511 units authorized in 2005 to 974 in 2010.

[...]

Las Cruces continues to show resilient growth in spite of the terrible homebuilding economy in 2010. 2011 will likewise show weak growth in the metro but as new major developments pick up steam in 2012, there should be an appreciable uptick in new home construction, if not an outright recovery.

[desertpunk]

El Paso Times

Solar project: Expansion considered for Santa Teresa plant
By Vic Kolenc \ El Paso Times
Posted: 09/11/2011

NRG Energy's new solar plant in Santa Teresa has been performing well in its first two weeks of operation. And the New Jersey company, along with El Paso Electric, which buys the plant's power, is studying the possibilities of adding more solar production in that area.

"It's been performing well, performing to plan," Tim Hemig, vice president of development for NRG Solar, said last week. NRG Solar is the California-based subsidiary of NRG Energy, one of the nation's largest developers and operators of power plants.

"We look forward to expanding the facility" in the future, Hemig said. "It's designed for expansion. We could double the size with the (additional) acreage we have available."

The Roadrunner Solar Generating Facility is tucked into 210 acres of slightly rolling desert near the Santa Teresa port of entry. A chain-link fence topped with barbed wire surrounds 340,000 photovoltaic solar panels that can produce up to 20 megawatts of electricity.

That's enough power to supply 6,600 homes in El Paso Electric's system.

The panels, grouped together on rows of metal pedestals, are tied to a tracking system that allows the panels to follow the sun.

NRG's other two, large photovoltaic solar panel plants, both in California, have fixed panels angled toward the sun that don't perform as well in the evening and morning, Hemig said.

"We think the tracking system will boost production as opposed to the fixed-panel system," he said.

[...]

[desertpunk]

El Paso Times: http://www.elpasotimes.com/business/ci_19006954

L&M Radiator Inc. moves to Las Cruces
Paula Monarez Diaz / El Paso Times
Posted: 09/30/2011



L&M Radiator Inc. has relocated from El Paso to Las Cruces.

The company is leasing about 52,000 square feet of manufacturing and warehouse space at 2100 South Valley.

The move will give L&M twice the manufacturing space of its former facility.

The company manufactures heavy-duty radiators and heat exchangers under the brand name "MESABI¨."

The move will force the company to increase its Las Cruces workforce by about 30 percent from its current 138 to meet demand, said Dan Chisholm, company president.

[...]

[desertpunk]

Dream Chaser "Space Taxi" May Launch Frm Spaceport America Next Year

Wed, 12 October, 2011

Summer Test Flight Planned for Sierra Nevada Space Taxi [Reuters]


NASA officials say Sierra Nevada Corp.'s Dream Chaser space taxi will make an unmanned high-altitude test flight next summer in which it will be lifted into the sky by Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo carrier craft, according to a Reuters report Oct. 11.

The test flight, which was added after Sierra Nevada received a $25.6 million boost to its $80 million contract with NASA, will take place from either Edwards Air Force Base in California or the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, according to Ed Mango, manager of NASA's Commercial Crew Program.

The seven-seat Dream Chaser is one of four space taxis being developed by private industry with backing from the U.S. government to ferry astronauts to the international space station.

[desertpunk]

Las Cruces Sun-News

Builders cautious, but see some success
Posted: 10/16/2011 11:30:07 PM MDT

By Brook Stockberger
bstockberger@lcsun-news.com

LAS CRUCES The good news: A new CVS Pharmacy is under construction, Tractor Supply just opened, Las Cruces Orthopaedic Associates is expanding its building and a lot of work is taking place at the plaza on El Paseo Road as Pro's Ranch Market's impending grand opening has caused a flurry of activity.

There are even some homes being built, and not just ones that cost less than $200,000.

"I'm finishing a house right now in the (higher-end) price range and working with two other people in that price range," said Judd Singer, owner of Villa Custom Homes. "Last year I hardly heard from anybody I thought my phone was broken."

So there is construction taking place.

The bad news and you knew there had to be some is that, through the end of September this year, the City of Las Cruces has issued 353 fewer building permits than last year, with a drop in valuation of about $1.5 million.

If you look closely, though, there is some room for hope in the statistics. A look at just September shows that, while the total number of permits is down from September of last year, the valuation for September 2011 is considerably higher to the tune of $20.4 million compared to $9.4 million, helped greatly by commercial permitting, specifically a facility Signal Wind Energy plans to build in the West Mesa Industrial Complex.

On the residential side, September of this year saw the city issue 39 permits for new residential construction with a value of $6.7 million, up from 23 permits last year and a valuation of $5.2 million.
"Unfortunately, nationally ... we're not seeing a lot of improvement," said Farrell Thurston, owner of Farrell Thurston Homes and Thurston Realty and president of the Building Association of Southern New Mexico. "But Las Cruces is growing and we can thank our lucky stars."

[...]

[desertpunk]

Spaceport America dedication today

http://www.elpasotimes.com/business/ci_19130377

British billionaire Richard Branson, New Mexico officials dedicate spaceport terminal
SUSAN MONTOYA BRYAN / Associated Press
Posted: 10/17/2011

UPHAM, N.M. -- Nearly a year after British billionaire Richard Branson was in southern New Mexico for the dedication of the runway at Spaceport America, he's back to get the keys to the newly completed terminal and hangar facility so his Virgin Galactic can begin its commercial space tourism venture from this remote patch of desert in Sierra County. Branson and Gov. Susana Martinez will be among the officials gathered Monday to dedicate the world's first built-from-scratch launch station for sending people and payloads into space.

Clad with custom metal paneling and massive panes of glass, the state-of-the-art terminal rises up from the desert floor to face the nearly 2-mile long runway. The building will house Virgin Galactic's sleek spacecraft, mission control and a preparation area for the space tourists who have booked suborbital flights aboard rocket ships the company is developing.

It was six years ago that Virgin Galactic and state officials reached an agreement to build the $209 million taxpayer-financed spaceport. Officials said the completion of the terminal and hangar facility marks another major milestone that brings the dream of rocketing tourists into space closer to reality. Still, the question many are asking is when the first ships will launch from Spaceport America. It was Branson who once predicted that the maiden passenger flight would take off in 2007.

Company officials now expect powered test flights to begin sometime next year. Commercial service will start up after the company gets a license from the Federal Aviation Administration. NASA has already signed a $4.5 million contract with the company for up to three chartered research flights. Some of the 455 ticketholders who are in line to fly with Virgin Galactic were scheduled to be at the dedication ceremony.

[...]

Pictures tomorrow.

image hosted on flickr

TSC Hanger Dedication - FAITH. Photo By Richard Weston Smith by Virgin Galactic, on Flickr

TSC Hanger Dedication - FAITH. Photo By Richard Weston Smith


More than 80 employees of The SpaceShip Company gather for a group photo at their new hangar facility, FAITH- (final assembly integration test hangar) at the Mojave Air and Space Port in Mojave, CA. early AM Monday September 19, 2011. The company is actively hiring, seeking to double its present 80 employees with jobs in fabrication and many areas of high technology.