While our politicians in Sacramento continue to proselytize for "green jobs" that may or may not appear, they have been ignoring one of California's most important and innovative industries: private space travel. This malign neglect has allowed New Mexico to capture the space tourism business, and the loss serves as a sad poster child for California's overall competitive failure.

Our cautionary tale of California's lost spaceships lost begins in June 2004. The federal government was winding down the space shuttle program and looking to the private sector for help. Meanwhile, the private human spaceflight industry was ramping up in California's Mojave Desert with the historic flights of SpaceShipOne - an innovative rocket-aircraft designed by brilliant Southern California aerospace engineers.

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/04/25/INIH1D2TSI.DTL