Jan. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Laurilee Thompson says her Dixie Crossroads seafood restaurant near Floridas Kennedy Space Center will lose $50,000 a year in tourist business after the space shuttle flies for the last time in September. Shes not the only taxpayer in Brevard County to feel pain.
Local unemployment climbed to almost 15 percent after Apollo lunar launches ended in 1972. Now Brevard, Floridas 10th-most populous county, where per capita income is already 8.3 percent less than the state average, is bracing for another blow as the U.S. shifts to moon and Mars flights from orbital missions.
Space Shuttle Shutdown Slams Brevard County as Debt Costs Rise - BusinessWeek
While the Space Shuttle is LONG past retirement and it's overuse and NASA's long term vision has left the people of Brevard and elsewhere exposed to economic loss through it's mismanagement, this type of impact is nothing new. It does however call into question the cancellation of the ARES program which the Administration wants to do, and then at the same time make talk about about job creation.
The bottom line here is that the Space Shuttle was a program that NASA managers did not develop a follow-on too and because of that lack of management on the part of NASA and now faced with the prospect of no manned space capability and the economic impact of it, they responded with the ARES program which will not be ready for another several years. Now NASA because of the recent review by the Administration has been told to scrap the ARES I and are back to trying to develop a system and rent rides from the Russians. Welcome to the brave new world of the space program.
Local unemployment climbed to almost 15 percent after Apollo lunar launches ended in 1972. Now Brevard, Floridas 10th-most populous county, where per capita income is already 8.3 percent less than the state average, is bracing for another blow as the U.S. shifts to moon and Mars flights from orbital missions.
Space Shuttle Shutdown Slams Brevard County as Debt Costs Rise - BusinessWeek
While the Space Shuttle is LONG past retirement and it's overuse and NASA's long term vision has left the people of Brevard and elsewhere exposed to economic loss through it's mismanagement, this type of impact is nothing new. It does however call into question the cancellation of the ARES program which the Administration wants to do, and then at the same time make talk about about job creation.
The bottom line here is that the Space Shuttle was a program that NASA managers did not develop a follow-on too and because of that lack of management on the part of NASA and now faced with the prospect of no manned space capability and the economic impact of it, they responded with the ARES program which will not be ready for another several years. Now NASA because of the recent review by the Administration has been told to scrap the ARES I and are back to trying to develop a system and rent rides from the Russians. Welcome to the brave new world of the space program.