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Comment by hugh3 | Hacker News Reader

It doesn't look quite so bad in the second picture where it blends into the background.

Architecturally I think this style is called "How to spend as much money as possible on something that is still just a big shed in the desert".

Seriously though, was there any real need to build a "spaceport"? Wouldn't White Knight/Spaceship 2.0 equally capable of operating out of any decent-sized airport, if you make sure you arrange priority landing for the spaceship? (Does Spaceship Two land on a runway?)

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Ups the cachet considerably, no? If you're paying that kind of money for a flight, isn't it more fitting to fly out of a Spaceport then Albuquerque International Airport?

Plus, given time, we may see a vicious hive of scum and villainy grow in the surrounding area.

Indeed, I was just wondering whether there was any practical reason for it. But since "sounds cool" is a more-than-sufficient justification for any Virgin activity at this stage, and since "building a spaceport" was really just "buying an old airport in the middle of the desert and putting up a new sign" I guess I'm not too surprised.

Plus, given time, we may see a vicious hive of scum and villainy grow in the surrounding area.

Albuquerque?

It's much closer to Roswell...

He meant Mos Eisley.

I got the Star Wars reference.

I used to live in Albuquerue and I was implying that Roswell was more like Mos Eisley than Albuquerque. Though that's just a personal opinion.

Makes sense. Albuquerque's west side is full of a bunch of whiney Luke types "I wish we were cool like the main city" :)

If you have to explain it...

Don't you mean a wretched hive of scum and villainy?

One of the very important reasons why it got built in New Mexico is that the White Sands test range has restricted airspace to infinity, which is unique out side of like the pentagon. As a result the air/space space right next to it is nicely uncluttered so they don't have to worry about space debris nearly as much.

That makes a lot of sense. But "infinity"? I'd like to see them enforce that beyond a few light-minutes...

I'm sure they're sending cease and desist notices to a number of galaxies all of the time. They're just waiting for the response before escalating.

At least White Sands is outside the tropics, so we don't need to worry about the sun. Not so sure about the moon.

This way they don't need to work around the schedule of a busy major airport, which I'm guessing would probably be unwilling to accommodate them. Pleasure flights and pilot lessons are usually out of small regional airports for similar reasons.

The passengers don't exactly just turn up, check their bags, and fly. They need to go through a complex medical check-up to ensure that they are fit for spaceflight. If I recall, the tickets include a two-week stay at the spaceport (to ensure everyone is healthy and ready for the process), and given the cost of tickets, it probably needs to be a nice place to stay.

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