wow.

Branson explained that with the historic partnership, “New Mexico will be known around the world as the launch pad of the new space industry.” He said that within a few years “we intend to take two to three flights a day to space from New Mexico.”

“We’re going where no one has gone before. There’s no model to follow, nothing to copy. That is what makes this so exciting,” Branson explained. “We might even be able to allow those aliens who landed at Roswell 50 years ago in a UFO a chance to go home.”

At today’s ceremonies, Will Whitehorn, president of Virgin Galactic, said that his company believes the future of space doesn’t lie in just ground-based rocketry. Rather, air-launched spaceships are the way to establish safe, affordable, mass transportation into space.

Whitehorn said that it has taken governments four decades to get 500 people to space. “We hope to do that in year one…and eventually be carrying up to 10,000 people a year by the later years of the project,” he said.

Prior to commercial space treks from New Mexico, Whitehorn said that Mojave, California is the site for an extensive test program of some 50 to 60 flights of SpaceShipTwo. That craft is now under development by aerospace designer, Burt Rutan and his team at Scaled Composites based in Mojave, California.

Current conceptual views of the spaceport, Whitehorn said, are tied to making it “the most environmentally-friendly spaceport/airport type structure that’s been built.” Largely to be fabricated underground, the New Mexico spaceport, for example, would use solar energy and an advanced water collection system.

Spotlighting the natural beauty of New Mexico, Whitehorn said that spaceport facilities will be underground as much as possible, “actually hidden from the ground, but visible when you’re in space and coming back to the Earth.”

On hand at the spaceport announcement today was movie actress Victoria Principal. She has already purchased a $200,000 Virgin Galactic ticket.

“I am thrilled about the first Virgin Galactic civilian flight scheduled for 2008 and I look forward to being on it,” Principal told the audience. “We’re on an era of a new form of transportation and a way of life that we’ve never known before,” she said.

(via space.com)