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Thursday, July 15, 1999
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Space station museum
proposed near test site
Project promoters hope to siphon tourists traveling on U.S. Highway 95 and state Routes 373 and 374.
By Steve Tetreault
Donrey Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- It would be a $40 million science museum built near a crossroads at Amargosa Valley. It would feature a 3-D IMAX theater, a Digistar planetarium and a 150-seat Area 51-themed restaurant.
The 92,000-square-foot museum is being designed to look like a spaceship has happened to land in the middle of nowhere -- thus it will be called the Desert Space Station.
It is being billed as a discovery center where visitors can explore Nevada's spaces -- air space, land space and outer space -- through exhibits and presentations.
The idea might sound a bit far out to some, but the project is a big feature of an economic development strategy being pursued in Nye County.
"Isn't that forward-thinking? We would welcome that," said Les Bradshaw, manager of the Nye County natural resources department, who is active in development.
Museum promoters hope to siphon tourists who travel on U.S. Highway 95 and state Routes 373 and 374 between Las Vegas and Death Valley National Park. They foresee the museum -- which would be about 85 miles northwest of Las Vegas -- developing into a destination in itself.
"It will be a must-see in the West," said Steve Bradhurst, a longtime Nye County consultant who heads a nonprofit group developing the museum, which is officially known as the Nevada Science and Technology Center.
Bradshaw said the museum only has to draw a fraction of the 1.3 million tourists who visit Death Valley each year. Feasibility studies reportedly estimate the project would need 300,000 visitors a year to survive.
Close by is Gate 510 to the Nevada Test Site. Planners say the learning center could prosper if the test site finds a thriving future as a solar energy mecca or a commercial spaceport. It could serve as a gateway to the testing grounds, coordinating exhibits with the real thing a bus trip away.
"We would welcome 200,000, 300,000, 400,000 people and, hopefully they would spend a few bucks while they're here," Bradshaw said. "It's visionary. It can't hurt us."
Bradhurst, a former Washoe County commissioner, was in Washington this week seeking help to kick-start the project in the form of a 450-acre federal land donation at the highway crossroads formerly known as Lathrop Wells.
Testifying before a U.S. Senate public land subcommittee, the consultant acknowledged the concept has a long road ahead.
He said fund-raising will begin this fall and could take two to three years -- so far $1.5 million has been raised and spent on master plans, architectural designs, construction blueprints, an economic impact study and a fund-raising strategy.
"I think it can be done, and it will be enhanced if there is certainty the land will be in hand," he said.
The museum would be located on U.S. 95 a half-mile west of the Route 373 turnoff to Death Valley Junction, Bradshaw said. At that intersection are two under-construction minimarts and the entrance to the Cherry Patch II brothel. County officials said Wednesday they may have no choice but to have the museum co-exist down the road from the brothel, which is licensed and on private property.
The museum could be a success if it embraces the public's fascination with "The X-Files"-style mystery of Nevada, said Chris Chrystal, spokeswoman for the Nevada Commission on Tourism. Further north, the state's designation of state Route 375 as the Extraterrestrial Highway has been a big draw, she noted.
"If they have UFO-type stuff in there and Area 51 memorabilia and exhibits, that would be a big draw," Chrystal said. "There's a tremendous interest internationally in UFOs and all the mystique." Area 51 is a classified "operating location" at Groom Lake that conspiracy theorists say houses alien carcasses and spacecraft.
"If you're going to drive to the desert to a museum, you need a reason to go. The mystique might do it," Chrystal said.
Legislation introduced in the Senate this month by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., would convey 450 acres of Bureau of Land Management land at no cost to Nye County for the museum.
An adjacent 350 acres would be granted to the county for another element of its development plan -- a business park that hopes to lure test site contractors and solar and wind energy companies.
Bradhurst said two firms, Composite Power Corp. and Minnesolar, already have signed letters of commitment to build 18,000 feet of manufacturing space, an investment of $35 million that will create 150 jobs.
Nye County is awaiting word on a $1.4 million grant from the Economic Development Administration for water and road improvements at the business park.
The museum and the business park are elements of a 200-mile long Nevada Science and Technology Corridor formed to pursue technical growth up and down U.S. 95. It's a partnership among Nye and Esmeralda counties, the Community College of Southern Nevada and the NTS Development Corp., a nonprofit organization formed by the Energy Department to spur reuse of the test site.
Reid said the county efforts are part of ongoing campaigns to rebuild a rural Nevada economy that was sent spinning with the end of the Cold War and the termination of nuclear weapons testing.
Bradshaw said Nye County is trying to create an environment where vendors who support the federal complex will have a reason to stay local rather than parking their shops in Las Vegas.
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Inside AREA 51
Graphic by Mike Johnson.
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