http://youtu.be/0bXuJksiq6A
Last week’s Spaceport Visitor’s Center opening brought Virgin Galactic CEO, George Whitesides To Truth or Consequences.
Last years crash in Mojave set Virgin Galactic back in their progress toward achieving commercial spaceflight. CEO George Whitesides says they remain committed to bringing space tourism to New Mexico.
“We remain undeterred,” Whitesides said. “And when we got involved in this program we knew that it was going to be challenging, and it’s certainly proven to be that. But, One of the things we know as American’s is that you can’t stop when things get hard. If we stopped when Apollo One happened in the Apollo program where would we be, right, so we didn’t stop. And we’re not going to stop, and we’re going to bring a commercial spaceport to the state of New Mexico. And it’s going to be a truly historic thing.”
He says that increasing tourists, will greatly increase jobs and economic development in the region and the visitor’s center is an important step toward that.
“This is going to be the pathway through which people and travel to see something that has historically never been present in our world before,” Whitesides said. “Which is regular, commercial space travel for humanity. And that’s a really exciting thing to be a part of.”
Spaceport America’s official tour operator, Follow the Sun Tours is leasing the Lee Belle Johnson Center from the City of Truth or Consequences for $900 a month. Some people in the city are upset the public building is being leased to a private company for a commercial use. Ariel Dougherty says she would like to see them lease a privately owned building.
“We don’t dispute that the visitor’s center should be downtown,” Dougherty said. “There are 5,6,7,8 other buildings that it could be in, so why not move it there instead of displacing the 4,500 people that they are. We don’t dispute that. That’s the problem with some of the opponents arguments they all say, oh it should be downtown, and we’re not disputing that. There are other locations, why this building.”
Protestors at the visitor center opening, organized a citizen petition that is forcing a special election that could turn the Lee Belle Johnson Center back to a senior recreation center. The election will be held on Tuesday, September 22nd, at the Truth or Consequences City Commission Chambers.
