The world's first commercial spaceport broke ground in southern New Mexico yesterday. BBC reports that Spaceport America is expected to take 18 months to build. The photos above and below show the artist's interpretations of what the spaceport will look like.
The 110,000-plus square foot facility is using green building practices. Spaceport America's terminal hangar facility will be built to the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED rating system. Extensive use of sustainable and clean energy technology will be used throughout the design. These technologies include earth-tubes that will pre-condition the air to reduce HVAC costs by 50-70% and solar thermal panels on the roof for hot water to the embedded in-floor loop system.
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson remarked on the importance of the groundbreaking for the spaceport. "After all of the hard work to get this project off the ground, it is gratifying to see Spaceport America finally become a reality," Bill Richardson said. "New Mexicans have stepped up to the plate by making this investment. This groundbreaking ceremony is an important step toward our goal of being at the forefront of a vibrant new, commercial space industry."
Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group launched Virgin Galactic in 2004 with the objective of developing commercial space vehicles that would transform the safety, cost and environmental impact associated with manned space travel. Virgin Galactic will be the spaceport's anchor tenant. Virgin Galactic has also been actively developing the technology to make low cost commercial space access a reality in conjunction with Burt Rutan and Northrop Grumman's Scaled Composites, the company developing WhiteKnightTwo and SpaceShipTwo for commercial spaceflight.
