Spaceport America Tour

 Saturday 27th May 2023

While researching Elephant Butte area I found Spaceport America. If you know John he loves all things space and stars so I booked us tickets for a tour. There were two tour times on Saturdays leaving from the nearby town of Truth Or Consequences and two on Fridays leaving from Las Cruces. The tour cost $50 each. We thought the tour would be on a big bus with a lot of people but when we arrived at the town tourist office where it departed from we saw a minivan. There were only thirteen of us on the tour with our guide and driver Chris Cruise and it was awesome. The whole tour felt very private, select.

https://finalfrontiertour.com/

Spaceport America is the first purpose built commercial spaceport in the world. The area was picked due to it's proximity to the U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range which has 6,000 square miles of restricted air space which means when Spaceport wants to launch a rocket they do not have to clear air traffic as they have to do at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. The area also has very low population density and 340 days of sunshine along with low humidity.

https://www.spaceportamerica.com/

What made this extra fun was two days prior there had been a Virgin Galactic launch which we heard at the campsite. We found some you tube videos of the launch and there were aerial pictures from the window of the rocket where you can see Elephant Butte reservoir.

https://www.krqe.com/news/space-news/virgin-galactics-unity-25-spaceflight-takes-off-from-new-mexicos-spaceport/

The dark grey wiggle is Elephant Butte reservoir  as seen from Virgin Galactic

We left Truth Or Consequences at 9am and drove to Spaceport America where Chris showed us around. Due to the highly confidential secret projects we did not see any spacecraft which was a shame but I would still highly recommend this tour.

We hopped on and off the mini bus at different points where Chris would give us some great information and loved to take our pictures so we didn't just have dodgy selfies. 

Out in the middle of nowhere

Approaching Spaceport America

It was a cooler day with some rare clouds that made my photographs look amazing! Genesis, a 2.5 ton art installation by Otto Rigan is at the entrance to Spaceport America.

Genesis

Next we saw a replica of a Virgin rocket. People think Spaceport America is part of Virgin Galactic but it was actually funded by two counties in New Mexico and is home to many space related companies including Boeing and Spinlaunch.

https://www.spinlaunch.com/

https://www.virgingalactic.com/

The area where the replica stood will soon be extended to include a tourist area and shop. I foresee our small tour with such great access ending soon with the area growing more popular and the tours becoming bigger.

Next part of the tour took us to the small building housing the launch control center. Do you have visions of the mission control room at Kennedy Space Center we see on movies? Lots of desks, people and computers with screens everywhere? It wasn't remotely like that! It was not even like an air traffic control tower, it was just a big desk with computer screens and a big window!

Do they have spreadsheets?

No spreadsheets, not impressed.

The very far away pale grey tower is Spinlaunch

Next we visited the fire station and met some of the crew who were on shift. They were lovely guys who told us about the rigs and were very happy to chat with us. There were a lot of facts about the huge rig we got to sit in but sorry it all went over my head but as you can imagine big rockets may need the help of big fire trucks!

New crew!

Next was the runway! Yup - may sound boring - but this runway is 12,000 feet long and 200 feet wide and gets cleaned by a sweeper machine that is housed at the fire station before each launch. Chris had to stop the mini van and check each tire for any debris before we were allowed to drive onto it and he had to get radio clearance.

There have been lots of events held on the runway from high end fashion shoots to car commercials to high speed driving including in 2022 - 

Dan Parker, a blind racecar driver, achieved the GUINNESS WORLD RECORDS^® title for the “Fastest Speed for a Car Driven Blindfolded” on Thursday, March 31. Parker set a new speed record of 211.043 miles per hour on the runway at Spaceport America in his custom-built Corvette, which included an innovative audio guidance system designed to his specifications. 

Next was the main hanger. We could not go in the front of the hanger as that is where Virgin is based, super secret, but we could stand out front for a photo opportunity.

We then drove around to the back of the hanger building and walked up the path used by the astronauts and dignitaries. 

View from the entrance

Inside was a small area with information on Spaceport America and a centrifugal machine. Of course John had a ride! He said it was good but his head kept banging side to side on the headrest.

Is this is good idea?

We left Spaceport America and Chris drove us back to the tourist office in Truth Or Consequences arriving in time for the 1pm tour to begin. We had an awesome time, the people we toured with were cool and as I said even though we did not see a rocket it was still so much fun.