Tue, Mar 23, 2010
Space Agency Accounts For Over 17 Thousand Jobs In The
Region
The end of the Constellation program could mean the loss of
thousands of jobs in the Houston area, but some with a history with
the space program in the region say they should be more concerned
about extending the shuttle's life to keep them.
George Abbey, a former director of the Johnson Space Center,
tells the Houston Chronical that the Texas Congressional Delegation
and the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership should focus more on
the spacecraft we have, rather than the one that's being planned.
"We're going backwards with the Constellation," he said. “Why
go to the moon? We’ve been there and done that.”
He calls the shuttle "a unique vehicle" that is a better
foundation for getting humans to Mars, if that is to be the
eventual destination. Abbey has been a vocal cheerleader for the
shuttle program as senior fellow in space policy at the James A.
Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University.
From a Texas-centric point of view, Abbey argues that many of
the jobs associated with Constellation are not in Texas, and so
preserving that program would have less of an impact on the Houston
economy. But Linda Singleton, a Lockheed spokeswoman with the Orion
program, said that part of the system is important to Houston.
“There are 4,300 people working on Orion across the
country” she said. “Nearly 700 of those people work in
the Houston area.”
Republican Representative Pete Olson from Sugar Land says
President Obama should have used some stimulus money for NASA. He
said scrapping Constellation amounts to "throwing away $11.5
billion" and could cost thousands of people their jobs. But he also
lays some of the blame on Republicans when they controlled Congress
and the White House. “We didn’t give them enough
resources to get the mission done,” he said.
“We’re making NASA pay for our problems.”
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