Alice Carruth - Spaceport America: The Ex Terra Podcast

While Spaceport America is best known for its high-profile tenant Virgin Galactic, there’s a lot more going on at the world’s first purpose-built spaceport.

Our guest on this edition of The Ex Terra Podcast, host Tom Patton talks with Alice Carruth, public relations coordinator for Spaceport America in New Mexico. According to the spaceport website, the FAA-licensed launch complex is situated on 18,000 acres adjacent to the U.S. Army White Sands Missile Range in southern New Mexico, has a rocket friendly environment of 6,000 square miles of restricted airspace, low population density, a 12,000-foot by 200-foot runway, vertical launch complexes, and about 340 days of sunshine and low humidity.

Some of the most respected companies in the commercial space industry are tenants at Spaceport America: Virgin Galactic, HAPS Mobile/ AeroVironment, UP Aerospace, and SpinLaunch. With customers EXOS Aerospace and Swift Engineering regularly using the complex for testing and launches.

The New Mexico Spaceport Authority was created by the Spaceport Development Act (New Mexico Statutes Annotated 1978 §58-31-1 et seq., Laws of 2005) for the purpose of developing the spaceport.

NMSA is an autonomous state-established authority, administratively attached to the Economic Development Department (EDD), and governed by a Board of Directors consisting of six members appointed by the Governor and the Cabinet Secretary of Economic Development (or the Secretary’s designee) who serves as chair of the board. The Lieutenant Governor and the Executive Director of NMSA serve in the board as nonvoting members.

Ms. Carruth talks about the many tenants at the spaceport, as well as the STEM education programs offered at the facility and much more on this edition of The Ex Terra Podcast.

How does what happens in space affect your everyday life? The Ex Terra podcast is dedicated to introducing you to many of the interesting people involved in the commercial space industry, and taking you behind the scenes with many of the companies making significant contributions to the new space economy. The podcast is available on Anchor, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Breaker, Overcast, Pocketcasts and Radio Public.