AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 79
BOTTOM: COURTESY OF VIRGIN GALACTIC
which houses the administrative, safety,
and security arm of Spaceport, sits on
18,000 acres. The runway is 12,000 feet
long and the vertical launch pad is located
five miles from the terminal hangar facility. Virgin Galactic leases the three-story
building from the state of New Mexico. The
company has a 20-year lease.
At the entryway is a Virgin Galactic
spaceship and the U-shaped Unity sculpture. After passing through the security
gates, a half-mile-long road leads up to the
Gateway to Space (New Mexico's name for
the terminal hangar facility). Side roads have
names such as Launch Loop, Milky Way, and
Asteroid Loop. The building itself is low
lying with a natural earthen berm. At the end
of the entry road is a parking circle and from
there one can stroll up "Astronaut Walk," a
deep brown channel cut through the building. At the top, the 10-percent-incline path
appears to end in nothingness-a brown, circular end of the road.
As we stand in the 109-degree-Fahrenheit heat, Lopez starts to explain why
he's brought us here but then exclaims,
"Is that a tarantula?" And, sure enough,
there's a very dead (thank God), twoinch-round, black hairy spider sitting in
front of what turns out to be one of three
hidden doors. That door leads into Virgin
Galactic's headquarters (we can't go there),
the center door leads to the three-storyhigh hangar (can't go there either), and the
third door leads to the Experience Gallery,
the visitor's center for the Gateway building. Here are interactive exhibits and a
G-shock trainer. We can view the hangar
from here-and it is massive-but cannot
take photographs because of the top-secret
and intense activity of Virgin Galactic's
moving-in staff.
Also on the site is a fuel farm, warehouse, and the largest fire and emergency
response team in this New Mexico county
of 15,000 residents. Rolf Hechler leads the
team from Fiore Industries, subcontracted
for Spaceport by the state of New Mexico.
He leads 16 firefighters and 13 security
guards on site. Hechler shares a reverence
for the work here. "This is a wonderful opportunity to support the making of
history," he said. "We are a small part of
ensuring the safety of what has been slow
in coming but is now upon us. We are training daily in anticipation of seeing the space
launch."
Or, as New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan
Grisham said at the May 10 announcement:
"How cool is this?"
AOPA
THE HANGAR at Spaceport America will
house two spaceship carriers and five
spacecraft (bottom). Chris Lopez (top)
and Rolf Hechler are part of the Spaceport
America site operations team.
EMAIL julie.walker@aopa.org
aopa.org/pilot AOPA PILOT | 79
http://www.aopa.org/pilot
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019
Contents
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - Intro
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - Cover1
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - Cover2
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - Contents
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 2
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 3
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 4
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 5
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 6
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 7
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 8
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 9
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 10
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 11
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 12
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 13
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 14
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 15
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 16
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 17
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 18
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 19
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 20
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 21
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 22
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 23
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 24
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 25
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 26
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 27
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 28
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 29
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 30
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 31
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 32
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 33
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 34
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 35
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 36
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 37
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 38
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 39
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 40
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 41
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 42
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 43
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 44
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 45
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 46
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 47
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 48
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 49
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 50
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 51
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 53
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 54
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 55
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 56
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 57
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 58
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 60
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 61
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 62
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 63
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 64
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 65
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 67
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 74
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 75
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 76
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 77
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 78
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 79
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 94
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 97
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 98
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 100
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AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - 112
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - Cover3
AOPA Pilot Magazine - October 2019 - Cover4
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