Wednesday night’s CBS News broadcast included a two-minute, 45-second segment on plans to develop a commercial spaceport in New Mexico. The report was even-handed, and even optimistic about the prospects for space tourism at the spaceport, which today is still just empty land save for a small launch pad built for UP Aerospace’s sounding rockets. The one funny thing is about how the closest town, Truth or Consequences (note the SpaceShipOne illustration in the header image on the city’s web site) is reacting to the spaceport:
“We’re amazed at the amount of traffic that has picked up,” [police chief Russell Peterson] says. “We’re lookin’ at puttin’ in two or three more stop lights, and we haven’t developed anything yet.”
Now, why would traffic be picking up that much in a town with currently only a single stoplight? Like the report says, there’s nothing there yet; even construction work on spaceport facilities has yet to begin. And how does the town know that the increased traffic is related to the planned spaceport?
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