OPINION: Spaceport America is a strategic asset for New Mexico’s next economy

When New Mexico debates budgets and priorities, Spaceport America is often reduced to slogans: “white elephant,” “boondoggle,” “shut it down.”

Skepticism is understandable. Taxpayers deserve proof, not promises. But if we are going to debate Spaceport America’s value, we should do it with facts and current data — because the state of the spaceport today is not what many assume.

To provide an objective measure of Spaceport America’s contribution, New Mexico State University’s Center for Border Economic Development (C-BED) analyzed the spaceport’s economic impact across calendar years 2019 through 2024. The results show a significant and growing impact.

In calendar year 2023, C-BED estimates Spaceport America supported 985 jobs and generated approximately $266 million in economic output. Across the six-year period studied, total value-added production reached $491 million, nearly half a billion dollars associated with spaceport-related activity.

For a state that rightly prioritizes economic diversification, those numbers matter. New Mexico boasts world-class science and engineering, featuring national laboratories, universities, a defense and aerospace legacy and a workforce with hard-earned expertise. 

However, turning those strengths into sustained private-sector growth requires infrastructure that companies can utilize, such as facilities for testing, operating and scaling up.

That is where Spaceport America fits. The modern space economy is not only about launches and astronauts. It includes satellites, communications, remote sensing, navigation, data services, uncrewed systems, advanced manufacturing and testing — many of which overlap with national security and dual-use technologies. A purpose-built spaceport helps New Mexico compete for this activity and retain more of the value chain, including contracts, suppliers, workforce pipelines and high-skill jobs.

One reason the “boondoggle” narrative persists is that commercial aerospace work is not always visible. Many customers prefer not to publicize proprietary testing. Quiet operations can look like “nothing is happening” to the casual observer, even when facilities are active and spending is occurring. That is precisely why independent reporting is so important.

Another factor shaping public perception has been a pause in spaceflights by our largest tenant, Virgin Galactic, while it manufactures its next-generation vehicles. That pause is real, but so are the company’s plans to begin flight testing its new spaceship later this year with spaceflights resuming in Q4 2026.

And Spaceport America is more than any one tenant. Alongside Virgin Galactic, we support a wider range of operations, including small and large unmanned aerial vehicles, vertical rocket work and — now — even a satellite ground station.

Virgin Galactic has stated that it has expansive plans, with its first two new vehicles launching multiple times a week, carrying up to 750 customers each year. This is expected to bring significant economic value to the state. When that happens, New Mexico will again be home to operational human spaceflight, something very few places on Earth can claim.

Infrastructure has cycles. Airports experience airline expansions and contractions. Research parks grow tenant by tenant. Ports change with trade patterns. The relevant question is whether an asset is attracting activity and producing measurable value over time.

New Mexicans should hold Spaceport America to high standards: safety, transparency, fiscal responsibility and clear progress. But the rational response to evidence of growing economic contribution is not to abandon the asset; it is to improve it, connect it more deliberately to the state’s innovation ecosystem, and ensure the benefits expand statewide.

We are soon releasing our third Annual Report highlighting the C-BED findings. I encourage readers to review the data and judge Spaceport America in the same way we evaluate other strategic public assets: by its measurable outcomes, by what it enables and by whether it strengthens New Mexico’s position in the industries that will define the coming decades.

The space economy is growing. The question for New Mexico is whether we will participate meaningfully — or watch opportunity consolidate elsewhere. Spaceport America is an asset that gives our state a credible seat at that table.

Scott McLaughlin is the executive director of Spaceport America and New Mexico Spaceport Authority.