It’s been three years since Burt Rutan’s company Scaled Composites sent the first privatly funded spacecraft into sub-orbit, winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize. During the final tests Sir Richard Branson courted the firm to create the first suborbital space liner, Virgin Galactic. The motive of the partnership is to bring space travel to the masses.

Now an architectural firm has been chosen to build Spaceport America in the New Mexico desert. The $31 million, 100,000 square foot terminal is to be decked out with pre and post-flight facilities, lounges and administrative offices. The idea is to create a complete experience that starts with training and education and ends with reflection and comfort.

The spaceport is designed to look, well – space age. It will be a multi level facility cut into the desert with energy friendly technology to heat and cool its interior. The concrete roof will retract as windows allow viewers to watch the spaceflights take place.

Construction is scheduled to begin by 2008. The New Mexico Spaceport Authority is scheduled to receive a green light by the FAA in 2009. Meaning that you could be sitting in some of the first flights within two years from now. Who knows, with competition and more development the idea of going to space may be affordable to all within the next decade.

Below is a video of Burt Rutan calling for entrepreneurs to lead the next wave of space flight:

[Space]

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