Where No Man Has Gone Before

I just have to tell this story after seeing that Governor Martinez has appointed a new leader to the Space Port that she loves to hate so much.  This new lady seems as if she is qualified so I would like her to convey this story to the Governor.

My friend Rodger Beimer took a week off in his newly found retirement routine to take a trip to Florida for the launch of the Discovery Space Shuttle.  I was going to join him but the launch was delayed from its earlier assigned date and I had to go to meetings in California.

Rodger knows me well and said I would have gone insane because of the mass of humanity and their cars. After the launch, which Rodger described in intricate and entertaining detail, he went to the parking lot to get in his car and travel the 50 miles to his hotel.  He started out at 5:30pm in the afternoon.  He got to his hotel just before midnight because of the 50 mile long traffic jam of thousands of people trying to do the same.  He is right.  I would have gone bonkers averaging 8 mph.

The point of this story is the amount of dollars pumped into Florida's economy by these space launches.  Rodger said he was standing near a pack of Germans that came in just to watch the spectacle.  Kind of like our balloon fiesta in Albuquerque.  I wonder if the Governor would approve of that public/private partnership that was conjured up back in the mid 70's during Harry Kinney's term as Mayor.  (Read about it here)

A lot of criticism was aimed at that effort too, but look how it has now been handed off to a private non profit which makes it work so well.  The same thing can happen with the Space Port effort and the Governor's new leader should work positively to see that it happens.  Don't go looking for mistakes and errors that have been made in this complex process but rather work to leave something to be proud of in the future.