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.”

FMI: www.nasa.gov, www.whitehouse.gov