Editorial: More sober this time about new spaceship

We’ll admit, the feeling wasn’t quite the same this time when Virgin Galactic unveiled the latest version of the spaceship it hopes to use to blast high-paying visitors into suborbital space from Spaceport America.

We’re not quite as giddy as we were the first time. When SpaceShipOne was first unveiled, we were too quick to believe the overly optimistic projections of Virgin Galactic’s charismatic leader Richard Branson and not well enough informed as to the rigorous and lengthy process of testing and development that would be needed before the craft could safely and routinely whisk big-money tourists to the brink of space.

We made the mistake of getting our hopes up the first few times Branson made predictions as to when launches would begin. It was clearly going to take longer than he or we had expected, but everything was still rolling along on track until the fourth test flight in October 2014 when the craft came apart high above the Mohave Desert, killing the copilot.

And so, as SpaceShipTwo was rolled out last week, we had a much better sense this time around as to what we are facing. The giddy feeling of year’s past has been replaced by a sense of just how difficult this undertaking will be.

But for all of that hard-won knowledge, we remain enthusiastic about the prospects of a commercial space hub in southern New Mexico. And we recognize last week’s unveiling as another important step in the process.

Branson and the other Virgin Galactic officials had to make a choice after the fatal crash.

“For about 24 hours we were wondering whether it was worth continuing, whether we should call it a day,” Branson told The Associated Press. Continuing on would be costly. They didn’t have to start from scratch, the second spaceship was already under development at the time of the crash. But they did have to go back through to check and recheck every system and make the corrections needed to ensure the malfunction that caused the 2014 crash never happens again.

They decided to forge ahead.

The state of New Mexico faces a similar choice. Some in the state Legislature want to give up on Spaceport America and sell it to the highest bidder. While that effort has not succeeded, a tight budget this year means the spaceport will not get the support it was hoping for.

Spaceport officials are working to diversify their client base and attract new businesses, as they must. New revenue sources will be critical for the next few years. But ultimately, the success of the spaceport still remains tied to a great extent to the success of Virgin Galactic.

Virgin Galactic has invested more than $500 million thus far — more than double the state’s investment in the spaceport — and will continue pouring money into testing and development until the spacecraft is ready.

Our challenge is to keep the spaceport afloat until then, and to be prepared for the day when Virgin is ready to launch.

That means building the southern road. It should not take local officials longer to build a road to Upham than it takes Virgin Galactic to design, develop and test a new rocket ship.

The race is on.