Hatch Getting Ready For Spaceport Visitors' Center

By J. Hopkins
SENTINEL ©Sierra County Sentinel 2007

     The Village of Hatch has been working on attracting the spaceport visitors' center there, and already has a site lined up and a study indicating the center could be a moneymaker. The village told the State Spaceport Authority it is getting ready to host visitors during a spaceport authority session held at Hatch's community center August 21.
     Jim Hayhoe, Hatch's spaceport consultant, distributed a feasibility study completed by NMSU's Arrowhead Center. The study indicated that with restaurants and other visitor-related revenue sources, the visitor center could pay for itself and have a positive economic effect on the community. Hayhoe said that a 38-acre campus including the welcome center could attract motels and other investments.
     "We have a commitment from one individual for land at no cost to the state," he said. "We have investigated the costs, and a resolution has been passed by the village board of trustees. We plan to go forward to get the endorsement of the Dona Ana County board of commissioners and the council of governments."
     State representative Andy Nunez added that "if any community deserves to get that welcome enter it is Hatch. This community has been on board from the beginning."
     The City of T-or-C is also bidding to get one of the two spaceport welcome centers the state is planning to build. The concept of the centers is to minimize traffic by having spaceport Visitors Park at the center and travel to the spaceport by bus or other mass transportation.

SPACEPORT UPDATE

     Spaceport America staffers brought the state's Spaceport Authority up to speed on a wide variety of issues and activities around the spaceport at a session in Hatch August 21. The Kelly O'Donnell, who has been the acting head of the Spaceport Authority since the resignation of Rick Homans, kicked off the meeting with a report on -Up until now, she said, the Spaceport Authority has been very conservative with staffing, but it has reached the critical point where the staff infrastructure has to be increased to support the effort, O'Donnell explained. There is a nationwide search underway for an executive director.
     "The personnel infrastructure needed to a support the effort has to grow," O'Donnell told the authority. She added that at this point the Spaceport authority itself has only about a four-person staff, "and if the budget were doubled it would still be only about a half million dollars." That budget is just for administrative operations, not for construction of the spaceport itself.
     "As a state agency our budget is part of an overall executive budget, so the executive puts together a budget that serves the greatest good for state budget. We will putting in a budget request to expand the staff for the Spaceport Authority."
     Spaceport Manager Mike Holston explained that experts will report to the authority monthly, and there are four main areas of concern.
     "This is not the same program as it was in January or even in June," he said. "As the program grows we are where we thought we would be--it shows that we are making progress."
     Holston talked about a broader management team and the need for collaboration in the spaceport effort. "I am very proud of the management team that Spaceport America has put together for this project...we are getting the very best," he said. "We have a need for milestone management as we move forward. To stay focused on progress, we need to stay focused on milestones. We need to measure our progress."
     Holston explained that the negotiations with the winner of the design competition are nearly complete, and the release of a draft design may happen as soon as the end of the week. "The design is truly going total meet the needs of the people who are going to be using it," he said. "We have been impressed with URS Corporation Foster+ Partners from the very beginning," he said.
     "We have a start date for construction in September of 09 with the anticipation of being complete by the second quarter of 2010," Luci Woodward of the spaceport staff explained. "We are using an aggressive timeline so we don't stretch the design phase longer than we have to."
     The State DOT has reported that improvements on the road to the spaceport inside Sierra County will get underway this winter, and it looks like the efforts to upgrade access from the north are on schedule, she went on. There is a plan underway to upgrade Ash Canyon near Elephant Butte to facilitate access for heavy equipment. Cattle guards near the spaceport site will also need improvement or replacement, according to spaceport staffers.
     "We recognize that the contribution that the department of transportation is making to this effort is huge," acting Chairman O'Donnell said.
     "This is a state that is going through a lot of growth and there are lots of opportunities for contractors," Holston said. "So one of the most important things that we are doing right now is meeting with the general contractors."
     Spaceport America staffers looking to October "as a month when we will know more" about materials, costs and designs, Woodward added.

LICENSE ISSUES

     The environmental impact study, which is needed before the spaceport can get a license from the federal aviation administration (FAA), is still months from completion.
     "There have been some changes and the environmental impact of those changes on the environmental report have to be explored, Bill Gutman said. "One thing that we are trying to do is maintain an appropriate level of accuracy," he said.
     "Once we have the license then Virgin Galactic can go forward," he said. "Getting the license is the critical hump."
     The current draft of the license application appears to satisfy all the license requirements, Gutman said, so the next draft of the license application will be the final, but that cannot be submitted until the draft environmental impact statement (EIS) is released for public review, which is still a few months away.
     "We don't believe there will be any substantive changes required," Gutman said.
     Jane Garvey, a former FAA administrator, said that environmental groups in public meetings here would explore the environmental issues in New Mexico this fall. "This is an enormously complicated project," she said, "Continued communication with the FAA is critical."

OTHER ISSUES

     "As we go from monthly to weekly to daily launches, we can see that we have a challenge to put together an operations plan," Steve Matier told the authority. "We're trying to put together an operational philosophy and policies and procedures.
     UP Aerospace, the only firm that has launched from the spaceport so far, is looking at the possibility for a couple of launches later this year.
     The Spaceport Authority will be asking a for a larger budget allocation for the coming fiscal year; bonds that were earmarked for spaceport funding have been sold, MaryAnn Myers told the authority board. The budget has to be in Santa Fe in September, she explained, and so the draft budget will be placed before the authority board at their next meeting.

VIDEO PROPOSAL

     The New Mexico Space Trail will be an informative interpretive trail for visitors, Laurie McDonald of Crush Interactive told the authority. The kiosks, which are small buildings in the shape of rockets, will include video presentations on a vandal-proof touch screen video system. Crush Interactive is seeking a contract with the spaceport authority to establish the video kiosks.
     Two companies--one from Los Angeles and the other from Albuquerque--have offered bids on building the kiosks. The bids range from $325,000 to $505,000 per kiosk. Crush Interactive is a video production company that will make the three-minute films if they secure a contract at a cost of about $10,000 per film. Total cost for the entire project will range from half a million dollars to $625,000.
     Jim Hayhoe, the Village of Hatch's spaceport consultant, distributed a welcome center feasibility study completed by NMSU's Arrowhead Center. The study indicated that with restaurants and other visitor-related revenue sources, the visitor center could pay for itself and have a positive economic effect on the community. Hayhoe said that a 38-acre campus including the welcome center could attract motels and other investments.
     "We have a commitment from one individual for land at no cost to the state," he said. "We have investigated the costs, and a resolution has been passed by the village board of trustees. We plan to go forward to get the endorsement of the Dona Ana County board of commissioners and the council of governments."
     State representative Andy Nunez added, "If any community deserves to get that welcome Center it is Hatch. This community has been on board from the beginning."