{"id":4657,"date":"2009-06-16T17:18:00","date_gmt":"2009-06-16T23:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/06\/state-breaks-ground-friday-on-spaceport-america\/"},"modified":"2009-06-16T17:18:00","modified_gmt":"2009-06-16T23:18:00","slug":"state-breaks-ground-friday-on-spaceport-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2009\/06\/state-breaks-ground-friday-on-spaceport-america\/","title":{"rendered":"State breaks ground Friday on Spaceport America"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Public can watch online and participate in celebrations in Las Cruces and T or C<\/span><\/p>\n

The long-awaited groundbreaking for Spaceport America<\/a> is taking place Friday, well over a year after state officials initially hoped it would happen.<\/p>\n

The ceremony at Upham<\/a>, the location where the spaceport is to be built, isn\u2019t open to the public, but you can watch it online at spaceportamerica.com<\/a>. It\u2019s scheduled to begin at 11 a.m. on Friday.<\/p>\n

In addition, there are public celebrations on Thursday in Las Cruces and Friday in Truth or Consequences that are scheduled to coincide with the groundbreaking.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Gov. Bill Richardson<\/a>, Las Cruces Mayor Ken Miyagishima<\/a> and officials from Virgin Galactic<\/a> will be among those present at the celebration in Las Cruces. The event, which begins at 5 p.m., will be held in Hadley Hall<\/a> on the Horseshoe at New Mexico State University. It will include speeches, live music and displays of NASA and White Sands Missile Range space vehicles.<\/p>\n

On Friday, before the groundbreaking, Richardson and other officials will gather at Ralph Edwards Park<\/a> in T or C for a smaller celebration. That event, which begins at 8 a.m., will also include speeches by several officials.<\/p>\n

Virgin Galactic also plans to fly WhiteKnightTwo<\/a> — the aircraft it plans to use to carry its passenger-ferrying spaceship into space — over Las Cruces, T or C and Spaceport America sometime between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Friday, \u201cweather and aircraft test flight schedule conditions permitting,\u201d according to a news release from the New Mexico Spaceport Authority<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There have already been a handful of smaller, unmanned launches of commercial vehicles from a temporary facility at Spaceport America. Friday\u2019s groundbreaking is for the real spaceport facility, which is estimated to cost $198 million and will include offices for Virgin, the spaceport\u2019s anchor tenant, and the spaceport authority. It will also include hangars for Virgin and a massive runway.<\/p>\n

Officials initially predicted a groundbreaking in early 2008, but clearing several hurdles — including obtaining funding from the Legislature and local communities, securing a commercial spaceport license from the Federal Aviation Administration and inking a lease agreement with Virgin — took longer than originally planned.<\/p>\n

Officials now estimate that the spaceport will become operational late next year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Public can watch online and participate in celebrations in Las Cruces and T or C The long-awaited groundbreaking for Spaceport America is taking place Friday, well over a year after state officials initially hoped it would happen. The ceremony at Upham, the location where the spaceport is to be built, isn\u2019t open to the public, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4657","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=4657"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4657\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}