Attention Potential Space Travelers: Would You Pay a Tax to Fund a Spaceport?

Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 03.26.07 | 8:07 AM ET

Residents of Doña Ana County in New Mexico will go to the polls next week to answer that question. The state legislature has approved $115 million for “Spaceport America”—envisioned as the world’s first all-commercial spaceport—and now, the Washington Post reports, a referendum will ask local residents if they’re willing to pay $.25 on a $100 purchase to help fund the rest of a project that could turn New Mexico into a space travel pioneer.

From the Post:

It’s the stuff of “Star Trek” and Buck Rogers, and many skeptical New Mexicans simply roll their eyes. The parched environs are, after all, also home to Roswell, where UFO buffs maintain space aliens and their ship were captured and hidden away for years.

But spaceport advocates, from Gov. Bill Richardson (D) to most of Doña Ana County’s commissioners, the local business community and many at New Mexico State University, are working hard to convince the members of the community that private space travel is an idea whose time has finally come—to them.