With the launch Friday of the Space Shuttle Atlantis from the Kennedy Space Center, the last of the 30-year-old American shuttle program, Florida’s Central Atlantic coast looked into an uncertain future that some fear may be an economic abyss.
The shuttle program has fueled the economy of Florida’s Space Coast like a solid rocket booster since the vehicle first flew in the early 1980s.
The area has been through a massive downturn before. After the end of the Apollo program, which launched the moon shots of the nation’s early space endeavor, Titusville, Cocoa Beach and other Brevard County towns essentially went into a slumber until the shuttle came along.
Local boosters say times are different now – the area is more diversified, with a heavy defense industry presence that’s not related directly to space, and a coming commercial space industry focus that already has more rocket launches lined up at the Cape than there were shuttle launches in recent years.
But nobody thinks the next couple of years are going to be great in the community built around the space industry, now that the government’s main vehicle will be offline.
Rep. Ritch Workman is relatively optimistic that things won’t be too terrible – he can give the local booster line about all the positive things going for the area. But he admits, it will be a challenging period.
“I don’t believe the sidewalks are going to roll up as they did after the Apollo program,” said Workman, R-Melbourne. “It’s not as grim as some would have you believe…
“All this being said, today really sucked,” Workman admitted. “For the first time after the launch, after that initial wave of patriotism, came a wave of absolute sadness.”
Already 6,000 of the workers at the private company United Space Alliance, which is contracted to do much of the shuttle work, have already been laid off. By the time the program is completely finished, about 9,000 direct shuttle program workers will have been laid off, local officials have said.
But with the space program dominating the local economy, that will spill out in waves through Brevard County, economists fear.
“It has enormous downstream effects,” said Orlando economist Hank Fishkind of Fishkind & Associates. “The shuttle workers are highly paid, so they spend lots of money in the local economy. Also, the program itself buys local goods and services.”
NASA spent nearly $2 billion a year in Brevard County, with far smaller amounts being spent in other nearby Central Florida counties. But most of the spending by far has been concentrated right at the Cape – which means the pain won’t be dispersed either.
Huge numbers of people in the area are touched by the change, even those who don’t come anywhere near a launch pad.
“I own a mortgage company – you don’t think I’m worried?” said Workman.
With the shuttle program’s end, Fishkind says, “it’s a terrible economic blow. That’s just no good from an economic sense.”
Local officials have been working hard to counter that view – and to try to diversify the economy, with the acknowledgement that private space ventures won’t immediately absorb all the laid-off workers.
“We don’t have anybody to pick up 3,000 employees,” said Workman. “We have plenty of people to pick up 20 here or 42 there.”
Still, Workman notes the dramatic change in the area from when Apollo was shut down at the end of 1972.
“After Apollo, the Space Coast wasn’t diversified. Since that point … you’ve got Lockheed Martin, Boeing, GE, Harris Corp.,” Workman said noting the huge increase in the number of defense contractors with a presence in the area without a direct relation to the space shuttle. And there are replacement operations at the Cape lined up – like the Delta rockets, which launch satellites, although they’re made in Alabama.
“We have Delta rockets going off left and right,” Workman said. “They’re going to be just fine.”
Also optimistic is U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, who actually flew on Space Shuttle Columbia in 1986. He’s banking not just on private space taxis taking astronauts and cargo into space, but also a continued future for government-driven space exploration.
“Today marks the end of one era, and the beginning of the next,” Nelson said in a statement released from Kennedy, where he watched Friday’s Atlantis launch. “Now, NASA will start building a new monster rocket that will help get us to Mars.”
Nelson said he was optimistic that NASA will complete a heavy-lift rocket for long-haul flights to asteroids, as well as renewing the push to go to Mars.
“We’re going to have a vigorous space program,” Nelson said. “That also will mean a lot of new work coming to the Kennedy Space Center.”
Gov. Rick Scott said Brevard County and the state’s efforts to diversify the economy will pay off.
“This is a historic time, and it’s sad to see the program end,” Scott said in his weekly radio address. “However, I am optimistic that we can attract high-tech aviation and aerospace jobs to the Space Coast because of our highly skilled workforce.”
By David Royse
