© 2009 by Michael Swickard, Ph.D.
At one time I lived at McCoy Air Force Base near Orlando, Fla. People usually comment with a wistful expression about how nice it must have been. No, mostly I remember the swamp mosquitoes. I lived there before Disneyworld and the other neat attractions were built. My father was stationed at the base. The only fun was the ocean some miles away.
Someone around that time must have had a vision of making Orlando a place where people would yearn to visit. I bet that person got laughed at many times when they mentioned their dreams. Still, over the years, with proper planning and money, it became so.
Forty years ago in July 1969 that same area of Florida and the rest of the world watched with great excitement the Apollo 11 mission that included landing two men on the moon. Astronauts Armstrong and Aldrin took that first step. There was no way anyone could imagine that only 10 more men would touch the moon, and then for most of 40 years, there would be no will to return to the moon.
During the Apollo 11 mission, Vice-President Agnew and others said our nation should land on Mars by the year 2000. Those were heady days for space exploration. I was in college and was convinced that by the year 2000 there would be full-time outposts on the moon and astronauts on Mars.
In fact, it was generally assumed by most of us that by the turn of the century trips into space would be available and reasonably priced for recreational use. Alas, exploring other worlds ran into the need of politicians to focus most of the available money on getting votes. The Mars dream was abandoned. There were still the space shuttle missions and the building of the International Space Station. But those were pale compared to the challenge of landing on another planet.
On to 2009
This brings us to 2009 and southern New Mexico, where a mostly privately run spaceport is being built. While government funds are involved, the central aim of the spaceport is to be a place to house privately funded space ventures including providing for those people who recreationally want to go into space.
Like the Orlando of my childhood there is not currently much out in the spaceport area other than plenty of schemes, dreams, hopes and fears. A few thousand people are working toward making the spaceport viable. Landing men on the moon and returning them safely took about 400,000 people in various companies and many billions of dollars in the eight-year rush to be the first (and only, as it turns out) to the moon.
With the hoopla about developing the southern New Mexico spaceport, we need to have a firm grasp of what will give this area Orlando-style stickiness, bringing in visitors and holding onto to them. It cannot just be to watch rockets go up. That is entertaining but you can only stand looking up for so long.
What will be the Orlando factor where people plan their vacations to be here in southern New Mexico? The rub is we have lots of booster and not all that much payload. Our best minds need to fill out the dream with things that 365 days a year will attract Mom, Pop and the kids.
Not like the moon
Maybe we can make everything at Spaceport Geronimo tax free. That is a start so that venture capitalists will invest fortunes building up the area. Ultimately, our area needs a 21st century draw that will function like Disneyworld.
Orlando made sure it had many different and appealing attractions for visitors, which must be our model in southern New Mexico. We must work on that aspect or the current “moonscape” out at the spaceport will look the same as it does now 20 years in the future.
We do not want to be like the moon, conquered and then forgotten.
Swickard is a weekly columnist for this site. You can reach him at michael@swickard.com.