The first atomic bomb explosion took place in New Mexico on July 16, 1944. Roswell New Mexico was the geographical location of Area 51 where UFOs' were hidden (mabey?). Microsoft Corporation had there first coporate office in New Mexico. Now, Richard Branson wants to build his spaceport in New Mexico. Virgin INC has alot of bucks like Microsoft INC. Virgin Galactic is trying to build and launch an indentified space flying object. Who knows, could New Mexico be a proving ground for pie-in-sky projects that DO hit the target?

New Mexico spaceport unveils new name
Updated 7/17/2006 12:03 AM ET
By Alicia Chang, Associated Press
Goodbye Southwest Regional Spaceport. Hello Spaceport America.

New Mexico officials planned to unveil the new name Monday for a proposed $225 million space hub where British billionaire Sir Richard Branson hopes to send paying tourists on suborbital flights.

The previous name was a mouthful to pronounce and didn't reflect the cutting-edge vision of the project, said New Mexico Economic Development Secretary Rick Homans.

Spaceport America is less parochial and solidifies New Mexico's spot as the premiere spaceport destination in North America, he said.

"It fits," Homans said. "It's simple yet bold."

Branson and New Mexico officials informally agreed to the name change last year, but held off announcing it until the Farnborough Air Show, a weeklong international aerospace trade show that starts Monday in England.

The name grew out of a 45-minute brainstorming session last December during a chartered helicopter ride to the spaceport site in the southern New Mexico desert near the White Sands Missile Range. Representatives from the state and Branson's Virgin Galactic threw out several possibilities, but ultimately agreed on Spaceport America.

The change still needs approval from the New Mexico Spaceport Authority, which was created to plan and build the private spaceport. But Homans, who chairs the authority, said he was confident the new name will pass muster.

Along with the name change, New Mexico designed a new logo promoting the change. It shows a simple white crescent cut by the words "Spaceport America" in white and red lettering.

Last month, New Mexico selected architectural firm DMJM Aviation/AECOM to design the initial infrastructure, including runways, roads and buildings. Temporary facilities have been set up so that the spaceport could launch its first flight in September by start-up private rocket firm UP Aerospace, which already has delayed the launch three times. That flight will be essential in the state's ongoing process to obtain a spaceport license from the Federal Aviation Administration.

When completed in 2010, Spaceport America will be the headquarters for Virgin Galactic, which is selling tickets for $200,000 apiece for a 2½- hour flight including five minutes of weightlessness.

In the meantime, Virgin Galactic plans to fly the first tourists out of the Mojave Airport in California, where SpaceShipOne became the first privately manned rocket to reach space in 2004.

Virgin Galactic has contracted with SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan to build a fleet of suborbital commercial rockets called SpaceShipTwo. Test flights are scheduled for next year, with the first tourist flights expected in 2008 or 2009 pending federal approval.

Stephen Attenborough, vice president for astronaut relations at Virgin Galactic, said the company plans to unveil a mock-up of SpaceShipTwo's cabin in the fall.

"It's about giving people the room and environment to have a great experience when they're up in space," Attenborough said.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The following paste from the BBC News Service forced me to BlogAgain.

NASA always seems to buy into these new telescopes to look for planets orbiting around solar systems other than our own. How can we get to the Planet Mars by Year 2020 while peering into our next door neighbors back yard millions of light years away?

Sunshade to look for distant life
A huge sunshade a million miles from Earth could help astronomers search for signs of life on planets orbiting distant stars, a study says.

The daisy-shaped "occulter", as it is known, would use a powerful telescope trailing thousands of miles behind.

The shade, described in the journal Nature, would stop light from the planet's star swamping the telescope.

The concept by Professor Webster Cash of the University of Colorado has already received funding from Nasa.

He believes an occulter could be in space within seven years "stalking" Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in 2013.

"We have proposed to build a star shade to launch a couple of months later and follow it out to its orbit," he said. "We believe this the fastest way to get operational."

Planetary search

Scientists are already searching for planets orbiting stars other than the Sun. Researchers hunt for these extra-solar planets, or exoplanets, using a number of techniques.

More than 170 have so far been discovered.

However, all the discoveries have relied on indirect methods of detection.

For example, astronomers look for the dimming of light as planets pass in front of their parent stars. Indirect techniques like this mean that only relatively large planets tend to get identified.

Astrobiologists, though, are really interested in finding smaller, Earth-like planets which could, in theory, have the right conditions for supporting life.

To do this, astronomers need a method of directly imaging the dim planets.

Numerous proposals have been put forward, including massive optical telescopes on Earth, or flotillas of space-based telescopes such as the Europe's Darwin mission or Nasa's Terrestrial Planet Finder.

All these schemes are still in development.

Sun block

Dubbed the New World's Observer, Professor Cash's design would use a giant 45m (148ft) daisy-shaped, plastic shield in tandem with a powerful telescope, trailing 15,000km (9,300 miles) behind.

The pair would orbit about a million miles (1.6 million km) from the Earth at a position known as a Lagrange point.

It's like a cricketer holding up his hand to block out the sunlight
Professor Webster Cash
Here, gravitational effects create a stable orbit with the same period of rotation around the Sun as our planet, effectively allowing the pair to track the movements of Earth.

To search for a planet, astronomers would pick a target star and move the shield in front of the telescope, using thrusters.

When the two align, the position of the shade ensures that excess light from the star is blocked, giving astronomers the maximum chance of spotting any small orbiting planet.

"It's like a cricketer holding up his hand to block out the sunlight as he tracks a ball in the air," said Professor Cash.

The pair would be held in position to give scientists time to image the planet and analyse its atmosphere for the chemical signatures of life.

It could also be used to map entire planetary systems trillions of miles away.

Future mission

The idea has already been given a huge boost by Nasa. The US space agency's Institute for Advanced Concepts gave the proposal $400,000 (£220,000).

Professor Cash and his team have also submitted a proposal to build a shade for the infra-red and visible James Webb Space Telescope.

However, some researchers believe that the Professor Cash and his team may still have some way to go before a star shade blasts into space.

"It's an interesting alternative idea but I suspect that there are enormous technical challenges," said Professor Timothy Naylor, an astrophysicist at Exeter University, UK.

Potential obstacles include carrying enough fuel for the thrusters and developing a method for keeping the shade and telescope in alignment.

"If you are trying to collect the light from a planet then you are going to have to stare at it for a relatively long period of time to do anything really useful," he said.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/5151610.stm

Published: 2006/07/05 20:08:44 GMT