On October 22,2010, a smiling Richard Branson spoke to the crowd at the runway dedication for Spaceport America located in New Mexico's forbidding Jornada del Muerto desert.  Two years before, his company, Virgin Galactic, had signed a twenty-year lease agreement with the authority to be its primary tenant.  Virgin Galactic was going to be in the forefront of the emerging space tourism business, transporting paying passengers to the 100-km edge of space.  Spaceport America was to be the hub of the new enterprise. When Mr. Branson spoke that day, he said, as he had stated many times before, that space tourism would be coming "soon" to New Mexico.  Just a few more adjustments were needed to the aircraft, he would say.  Ten years and at least 225 million in New Mexico taxpayer dollars later, New Mexicans are still waiting for Mr. Branson to start ferrying tourists to the edge of space. How did this fiscal fiasco happen...(Read Full Post)