New Mexico's Spaceport America Takes Shape in the Middle of Nowhere
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, N.M. — After years of construction work, Spaceport America is close to hosting its first space tourists — and the locals who have been waiting all those years for the $212 million facility to bring an economic payoff say it's about time.
"There have been so many things this area banks on and it never seems to happen," Peggy Sherman said as she sat at the Happy Belly Deli here in her adopted hometown. "This is the first thing that's actually been built."
Brushes with fame are nothing new for this desert town of 6,500 inhabitants, situated 150 miles south of Albuquerque and 75 miles north of Las Cruces, N.M. The town changed its name to Truth or Consequences, or "T or C" for short, in 1950 to get the attention of a radio quiz show by that name. Before that, the place was called Hot Springs, best-known for its spas and its Old West connections to Geronimo and Billy the Kid.
Today, it's one of the poorest places in the state of New Mexico. Thanks to a sales tax levy approved six years ago, it's also on the hook for part of the bill for building Spaceport America, 30 miles to the southeast.
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