Glad to see tours again at spaceport

We were glad to learn that tours to Spaceport America have resumed, giving both local residents and visitors the opportunity to experience the unique facility northeast of Las Cruces the was designed specifically for the commercial space industry.

The Spaceport America Experience Tour will be conducted by Final Frontier Tours, a new Las Cruces company owned by Curtis Roseman. He has partnered with VIP Southwest Services, a luxury transportation service established by Ernie Harp three years ago. Along with the 14-passenger luxury coach bus, they will also offer a limousine ride to the spaceport for those with fancier tastes.

Tours will begin from the Spaceport America Visitor Center in Truth or Consequences, where participants will be able to view and engage with educational and interactive space exhibits to learn more about space flight before heading out for the spaceport.

Shuttles to the spaceport will include multi-media presentations to make the trip go faster.

Once at the spaceport, visitors will start their tour at the Gateway Gallery, which includes numerous interactive exhibits and kiosks explaining the spaceport and commercial space. More adventurous visitors can take a spin, literally, in the G-Shock simulator. Two riders at a time are strapped in and then twisted and spun, both right-side-up and upside down, to experience the same sensations as astronauts in space.

From there, visitors will move to the Spaceport Operations Center, where specialists monitor and direct launches and other operations. And, they will get to see the massive firefighting equipment stationed at the spaceport, and hear from those charged with handling any potential accident.

The entire tour is expected to last about four hours, and will give visitors an up-close look at the first purpose-built spaceport in the nation.

The Spaceport Tour Experience will replace Follow the Sun Tours, which had previously provided tours at the spaceport before ending the relationship in 2016. We think it is important that local residents, who are helping to fund the spaceport through an increase in the county gross receipts tax, have a chance to see where their tax money is going. The more people who get out to see the spaceport, the greater local support there will be for the facility.

All this comes as Virgin Galactic is completing its testing of White Knight Two and SpaceShip Two with glide tests in Mojave, California. Expectations are that launches from Spaceport America will begin in 2018 if tests go successfully.

Things are ramping up for what is expected to be a big year at the spaceport. It will be important that tours remain a part of the mix, keeping local residents connected to the spaceport even as it serves clients from around the world.