{"id":18832,"date":"2010-06-28T11:59:34","date_gmt":"2010-06-28T17:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=18832"},"modified":"2010-06-28T11:59:41","modified_gmt":"2010-06-28T17:59:41","slug":"%e2%80%98stars-were-aligned%e2%80%99-for-nm-spaceport-newspaper-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/06\/%e2%80%98stars-were-aligned%e2%80%99-for-nm-spaceport-newspaper-says\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Stars were aligned\u2019 for NM spaceport, newspaper says"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

An artist's rendition of Spaceport America (Courtesy photo)<\/p><\/div>\n

Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a> says New Mexico couldn\u2019t get a project to construct the world\u2019s first purpose-built commercial spaceport off the ground today. Good thing for Richardson that the funding was secured years ago, then, since he says Spaceport America<\/a> will be one of his top achievements.<\/p>\n

As the spaceport\u2019s first phase is being built northeast of Las Cruces, a new article<\/a> in the Denver Post says it was a mix of \u201cpublic money, political will, a rich space heritage and the tenacity of its visionaries\u201d that launched the project early in Richardson\u2019s tenure. The article\u2019s headline states that the \u201cstars were aligned.\u201d<\/p>\n

The project is now taking shape, with a 10,000-foot runway nearly complete and a terminal hangar facility under construction. That building will house the New Mexico Spaceport Authority and anchor tenant Virgin Galactic.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can see the gamble to start paying off in the next five years,\u201d the Post quoted Richardson as saying. He added that the spaceport will prove to be \u201cone of my top achievements as governor.\u201d<\/p>\n

The timing for the project was perfect. Early in Richardson\u2019s tenure he had lots more political power to push through a big-dollar item than he does now. The economy was good. The state\u2019s fiscal health was sound coming off the Johnson years. And Virgin Galactic was looking for a place to use as its home base.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of things came together at the right time,\u201d the Post quoted Richardson as saying. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t do it now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Bill Richardson says New Mexico couldn\u2019t get a project to construct the world\u2019s first purpose-built commercial spaceport off the ground today. Good thing for Richardson that the funding was secured years ago, then, since he says Spaceport America will be one of his top achievements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[112,107,141],"class_list":["post-18832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-bill-richardson","tag-roundhouse","tag-spaceport-america"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18832"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18832\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}