NASA has a “clear path” to the future and times will be good again one day at Kennedy Space Center — even though the 30-year space shuttle program ends in July and the agency has not yet revealed the next big thing in manned space flight.<\/p>\n
\n
That was the unanimous opinion of a panel that included U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Florida, KSC Director Robert Cabana and others who gathered this morning to discuss what lies “beyond the shuttle.” They spoke in the first of a series of public forums on Florida’s future sponsored by the Orlando Sentinel and the University of Central Florida.<\/p>\n
“There is a perception that we do not have a clear path,” Nelson said. “The fact is\u2026 there is a clear path forward.”<\/p>\n
The path he described, laid out in the NASA authorization bill he cosponsored last fall, involves:<\/p>\n
\u2022Expectations that the fledgling commercial space flight program will blossom, largely at KSC, leading to cargo hauls to the International Space Station as early as late this year, and privately-launched manned space flights as early as 2014;<\/p>\n
\u2022The evolution of KSC as more of a multi-use space port, supporting NASA and private launches of various kinds;<\/p>\n
\u2022The development of a still-unannounced, still-unfunded heavy-lift rocket program to take astronauts to still-undetermined places beyond Earth’s orbit. NASA is expected to announce a decision on a rocket design next week;<\/p>\n
\u2022And increasing space and aeronautics research and development activity and space vehicle construction at Cape Canaveral.<\/p>\n
Yet even if the new path gets clearer, and if funding and long-term support materializes, it will not likely result in the level of activity or employment that the Space Coast enjoyed during the space shuttle program, or during past big-ticket programs such as Apollo.<\/p>\n
Cabana said direct employment at Kennedy, which is slipping from about 15,000 to about 8,200 by the end of this year \u2013 not including thousands more jobs disappearing from contractors’ centers outside the space center’s gates \u2013 should climb back to about 10,000 by 2015 or 2016.<\/p>\n
Then it should stabilize, he said.<\/p>\n
Editor’s note: The forum was organized by the\u00a0Orlando Sentinel in partnership with UCF’s Metropolitan\u00a0Center for Regional Studies. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\nSource: Orlando Sentinel, <\/em>NASA’s path to the future is ‘clear,’ panel says. Updated: June 17, 2011, 11:53 AM ET<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NASA has a “clear path” to the future and times will be good again one day at Kennedy Space Center — even though the 30-year space shuttle program ends in July and the agency has not yet revealed the next big thing in manned space flight. That was the unanimous opinion of a panel that included U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson,…","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":24612,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"template-twocol.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"lazy_load_responsive_images_disabled":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":"","_wp_rev_ctl_limit":""},"categories":[6,24],"tags":[482,4013,4361],"tu_author":[],"class_list":["post-24598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-science-technology","tag-bill-nelson","tag-robert-cabana","tag-space"],"yoast_head":"\nNASA's Path to the Future is 'Clear,' Panel Says | University of Central Florida News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"NASA has a "clear path" to the future and times will be good again one day at Kennedy Space Center -- even though the 30-year space shuttle program ends\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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