Brevard County, FL Projects 23,000 Job Losses

The number of jobs that will be lost if Congress goes along with President Obama’s plan to cancel the Constellation program — on top of terminating the space shuttle — has not been officially revealed by NASA, but one county that will be hard-hit is estimating 23,000 in its community alone.

NASA says only that while it does not plan to cut its own civil servant workforce, there will be job losses for contractors but they do not yet know how many. One hard-hit community will be the area around Kennedy Space Center, Florida, especially Brevard County. Florida Today reports that the county’s workforce president now estimates the loss of 23,000 jobs: 9,000 direct jobs (7,000 from shuttle termination, the remainder if Constellation “and other initiatives” in the FY2011 budget request are cancelled), and 14,000 indirect jobs from area businesses such as restaurants, hotels, etc.

The newspaper reported an estimate of 2,400 jobs that could be gained if potential commercial crew companies could be “lured” to Brevard County, but also quoted a representative of United Space Alliance as warning that Florida should not assume it has a “birthright” to human spaceflight, that companies would choose where to conduct launches based on market forces. NASA Administrator Bolden asserted in recent testimony to Congress that the agency expects commercial space to be a source of new jobs: “An enhanced U.S. commercial space industry will create new high-tech jobs, leverage private sector capabilities and energy in this area, and spawn other businesses and commercial opportunities, which will spur growth in our Nation’s economy.”

The effect on jobs and the aerospace workforce as a whole has been a major topic of questioning in Congress about the President’s new plan for NASA.