Spaceport America

Spaceport America is the world's first purpose-built, FAA-licensed commercial spaceport, located in the high desert of Sierra County, New Mexico, near the town of Truth or Consequences. Designed by Foster + Partners, the sleek, earth-bermed terminal and hangar building rises dramatically from the desert landscape like something from a science fiction film — which is entirely appropriate for a facility designed to launch human beings into space. Virgin Galactic has used Spaceport America as its base of operations since 2011, and the facility has hosted multiple successful commercial spaceflight missions.

Tours of Spaceport America, operated by Spaceport America Tour and Shuttle Bus Service, depart from the Tourism Center in Truth or Consequences and provide access to the actual spaceport facilities, including the Virgin Galactic hangar, the runway where spacecraft take off and land, and the dramatic Gateway to Space terminal building. The two-hour tours offer an extraordinary behind-the-scenes look at the infrastructure of the commercial spaceflight industry — a rare opportunity to see where humanity's next chapter is being written.

The spaceport experience is enriched by its dramatic desert setting: the surrounding Jornada del Muerto desert basin, ringed by mountain ranges and crossed by ancient lava flows, creates a landscape that feels appropriately otherworldly for a space launch facility. The site is also adjacent to White Sands Missile Range, where the first atomic bomb was tested in 1945 — layering New Mexico's extraordinary mid-20th-century scientific heritage with its cutting-edge 21st-century space ambitions.