Spaceport America — The Mothership in the Desert
Near Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico
About twenty miles southeast of Truth or Consequences, rising from the flat desert of the Jornada del Muerto, is the most improbable building in New Mexico. It is a low, sweeping structure of curved glass and concrete that looks more like a piece of science fiction architecture than anything a traveler expects to find in the high desert. This is Spaceport America, the world's first purpose-built commercial spaceport.
The state of New Mexico authorized and funded the facility, which broke ground in two thousand nine and opened its main terminal in two thousand eleven. The primary tenant was Virgin Galactic, the company founded by Richard Branson to develop commercial space tourism. The site was chosen partly for its remote location and its clear skies, and partly for the long, flat lakebed runway that stretches across the basin floor.
The spaceport sits within Sierra County, the same county as Truth or Consequences, and the town has become an informal access point for visitors making the trip. The terminal was designed by the British architecture firm Foster and Partners, a soaring structure oriented to the landscape rather than the road. Locals sometimes call it the mothership.
The connection between a geothermal spa town named after a nineteen fifties radio program and a commercial space terminal is the kind of pairing that New Mexico produces without apparent effort.
