Word: mexico
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MONTERREY, MEXICO...
This expanse of high desert 35 miles southwest of Truth or Consequences, N.M., is the site of Spaceport America, a collaborative effort between the state and Richard Branson's space enterprise, Virgin Galactic, that hopes to send private citizens into near orbit as early as 2011. New Mexico is spending $198 million on construction; Virgin Galactic will lease the place for 20 years at a price of $200 million to $250 million. (See pictures of billionaire Richard Branson...
Proponents hail this remote corner of New Mexico as an ideal location for a spaceport: the weather is dry and clear year round, and at 4,500 ft. above sea level, jokes Steve Landeene, the spaceport's executive director, "the first mile is free." Physicist Robert Goddard developed modern rocketry here in the 1930s; in 1947, a mysterious object crashed to earth outside Roswell, making the town synonymous with UFO conspiracy theories. Thanks to the restricted airspace over the neighboring White Sands Missile Range and Holloman Air Force Base, there's also hardly any commercial air traffic. (Watch an interview...
...protection for bona fide informants, the system doesn't do enough to weed out the inveterate liars and con men looking for government shelter. "Many witnesses under protection will say anything to save their skins," says Carlos Gallegos, a lawyer and political analyst at the National Autonomous University of Mexico in Mexico City. "How can the system trust them? They can cause havoc in a legal system as fragile and corrupt as ours...
True, but given the epic levels that Mexican drug-trafficking and violence have reached today, the government needs every intelligence resource it can get. The U.S. has pledged almost $1.5 billion for Mexico's war against the cartels, and critics say more of it should be directed to software like police-modernization programs instead of hardware like Blackhawk helicopters. A reliable witness-protection program should be on that list before more soplones get whacked...