Source: The Orlando Sentinel
When President Barack Obama speaks at Kennedy Space Center on Thursday, he’ll offer its 15,000 workers something that’s been in short supply lately: hope, or at least a chance that their future won’t be as dire as expected.
Facing the loss of 9,000 jobs after the space shuttle completes its final three launches, KSC employees have lived for years with a nagging sense of doom because of the uncertainty surrounding the Constellation moon rocket program that was supposed to replace the shuttle.
What Obama will present Thursday is a new plan for NASA and KSC that some local aerospace experts think has the potential to both save some jobs and transform the facility into a thriving spaceport on the cutting edge of rocket technology.
Senior administration officials have told members of the Florida congressional delegation that their efforts could bring as many to 5,000 jobs to the Cape by 2012. And although how they arrived at those figures is unclear — one of the many unknowns in the new NASA plan — they’ve gotten the attention of the local aerospace community.
“I think a lot of people right now are focusing on the short-term challenge, which is the shuttle job loss,” said Lynda Weatherman, president of the Economic Development Commission of Florida’s Space Coast. “In the long term, there’s a lot of opportunity.”
Obama wants to spend $1.9 billion over five years to upgrade KSC’s aging infrastructure, plus an additional $5.8 billion to put the facility at the center of new NASA initiatives to jump-start the commercial-rocket industry. He would also give KSC a role in developing futuristic technologies that could one day enable NASA astronauts to set foot on Mars.
To continue reading this story: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/os-obama-ksc-hope-20100414,0,3963154.story