Spaceport Blues

When former Gov. Bill Richardson and Sir Richard Branson announced to a large Santa Fe audience, in late 2005,  that Spaceport America would be located in New Mexico, hopes ran high. The timetable called for Virgin Galactic to to finish Spaceship Two to be ready in 2008 and the Spaceport in 2009. During the intervening year, Branson's spaceships would fly out of California.
 
As it turned out, New Mexico's timetable was more realistic. We soon made up the one year lag, and are ready to lift off the project anytime Branson is ready. Branson's latest delay is from Christmas Day this year to August of next year.
 
Meanwhile the citizen astronauts, who were promised lavish surroundings, are looking at the desert and asking where the luxury hotel is. The plan was for Branson to finish that long ago. To make matters worse, the spaceship, designed by Scaled Composites of California, may not be sufficient to reach the edge of space.
 
We may never get there.

A LESSON TWICE LEARNED

Remember "Share," the new accounting system introduced by former Gov. Bill Richardson? It was developed too quickly. with no time for training. Small firms doing business with the state went broke waiting for state payments. State employees didn't get their paychecks. It took well over a year to fix.
 
The rollout of "Obamacare" is the second verse.