If you haven’t already seen it, I was quoted in an article on the future of Spaceport America that ran in media outlets all over the country today.
Rob Nikolewski has an even more detailed article on the Spaceport that includes interviews with head of the Spaceport Authority Christine Anderson and myself that was done after a panel discussion on the topic that took place in Santa Fe.
A future blog or column may address the local phenomenon of investing state resources in white elephants. Virgin Galactic looks likely to depart from the Spaceport, funded at $200-plus-million under Bill Richardson. Robert Brumley’s CITE looks likely to be a con job or a loser for the state’s investment of no one knows how much under Susana Martinez. A build-it-and-they-will-come is a desperate effort by a desperate state looking for placebos instead of real solutions to real problems. My hope is that there is a demand for white elephants elsewhere so that the state can turn a profit on them (one problem: facilities cannot be shipped to customers).
We have been long-time critics of government-driven development. Big projects or industry/company-specific subsidies are economically unjustifiable. I am not familiar with CITE. Can you provide more details?
Yes, just like road runner train this too will fail and cost NM taxpayers, who are the poorest in the nation.