This story was printed back on April Fool's Day, 2008, about the job losses that will be incurred when the Space Shuttle program is scheduled to end. And, of course, we are now witnessing the last Space Shuttle flight.
The timing to shut down this program could not come at a worse time for the country with regard to the economic impact. Florida will get hit hard, but it is interesting to see where else the effects will be felt.
This paragraph caught my eyes:
The bleakest forecast was issued for the flagship Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Fla., where just 1,600 to 2,300 employees were expected to remain in 2011, a cut of up to 80 percent from its current 8,000 workers. The Michoud Assembly Facility near New Orleans was forecast to lose as many as 1,300 of its 1,900 jobs.
1,300 jobs; that is not trivial.
The article went on:
Nationally, NASA said the number of full-time civil servants in its manned space program would fall to about 4,100 in 2011, a loss of about 600 jobs from this year. Including outside contractors, the number of jobs would fall to an estimated 12,500 to 13,800. About 21,000 are currently employed.
NASA said it could be more than a year before it has more dependable job forecasts.
So, let's look at
more recent estimates of job losses, February 26, 2010:
Revised projections now show that about 23,000 workers at and around Kennedy Space Center will lose their jobs because of the shuttles' retirement and the new proposal to cancel the development of new rockets and spacecraft.
That sum includes 9,000 "direct" space jobs and -- conservatively speaking -- 14,000 "indirect" jobs at hotels, restaurants, retail stores and others that depend on activity at the space center.
To put that in perspective: in the most recent jobs survey (for June, 2011), only 18,000 new jobs were created -- a horrendous report. When the July and August reports come out, we will begin seeing the loss of jobs due to shutting down the Space Shuttle program. These 23,000 workers are "in and around the Kennedy Space Center" and do not include numbers of folks affected across the nation, including the 1,300 in New Orleans, noted above. I assume there are more than a few jobs in Houston, Texas, directly affected by the program's demise.
Could the program be resurrected? Stranger things have happened. Advocates just have to think up a new name. My suggestion: put the word "green" in the program. And promise to use shovel-ready solar panel projects to provide energy for all ground-based support functions for the space shuttle.
