New Mexico Spaceport Designs Unveiled

Architects and officials last week unveiled the planned design for Spaceport America's 100,000-square-foot (9,300-square-meter) main terminal, pictured above.

The southern New Mexico facility will serve as home base for Virgin Galactic, a space-tourism company started by Virgin Atlantic Airways founder Richard Branson.

According to the designers, the facility will blend into its dusty surroundings to resemble a rise in the desert floor. Groundbreaking on the low-lying structure—a collaboration between the URS corporation and the Foster and Partners architecture firm, is scheduled for early 2008.

Funding in the amount of 198 million U.S. dollars has been in place since April, when residents of New Mexico's Dona Ana County approved a tax to finance the project. (Read "Spaceport Plan Divides New Mexico Voters" [April 3, 2007].)


A computer rendering shows the planned Spaceport America terminal and hangar from above.

The terminal building, is estimated to cost approximately 31 million U.S. dollars. It is supposed to be model of eco-design, developers say, with few energy requirements and minimal "embodied carbon"—the amount of carbon dioxide emitted during the production of the building.

Much of the structure will be dug into the landscape, helping to buffer the interior from the extremes of the hot and sunny New Mexico climate. The building will also feature electricity-producing photovoltaic cells and a system for storing and reusing water.

The designers hope to achieve a platinum Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating from the U.S. Green Building Council—the group's highest certification.



The passageway into the planned Spaceport America terminal, shown here, will have museum-like displays of New Mexico's place in the history of space exploration, dating back to Robert Goddard's rocket experiments in Roswell in the 1920s.

The developers of the spaceport hope to create a major tourist destination on a desolate pocket of land 45 miles (72 kilometers) northeast of Las Cruces that will draw architecture buffs as well as space enthusiasts.