1000's Space Jobs Could Come to Huntsville

Aerospace-industry leaders plan to tell Florida legislators today that unless some miracle takes place to breathe new life into the space business at Cape Canaveral, the state's most skilled workers will almost certainly be leaving in droves to take jobs in Alabama.

Thousands of top engineers are needed by 2011 at the Missile Defense Agency, an arm of the Pentagon in charge of developing an integrated U.S. missile-defense system for the country. The agency is moving its operations from its current home in northern Virginia to Huntsville, Ala.

Already NASA's shuttle contractor, United Space Alliance, is negotiating with the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce to find work for many space-shuttle engineers when the shuttle program ends 18 months from now.

The brain drain will be a huge blow to Florida and especially Brevard County, which is already braced for the hardship that the end of the shuttle program will bring to the area. At least 3,500 workers at Kennedy Space Center are in line to lose their jobs by the end of next year.

But NASA and state policymakers have been counting on the highly skilled workers staying on the Space Coast to attract new aerospace business to the area and to help NASA build its next rocket program to go the moon in 2020.

A mass exodus of engineers would severely complicate those plans.

"This is not our first choice by any means," said Lisa Rice, president of the Brevard Workforce Development Board.

The bad news will be delivered to state legislators by a few space-industry leaders when they meet state lawmakers today during Space Day, an annual event held during the legislative session's first week to promote space issues.

Space Florida's problems

The message is expected to cast a pall over the celebration, which this year is already tainted by a host of troubles dogging the state's aerospace-development body, Space Florida, the sponsor of the event. The agency is being criticized by senior legislators and aerospace executives for its spotty track record of signing contracts and generating space-related jobs.

The Governor's Office is investigating one of the agency's groundbreaking deals — a space-tourist training program called "Project Odyssey" — after the Orlando Sentinel disclosed that a state employee who worked on the contract resigned to go to work for the clinic that won it, a potential violation of Florida's ethics laws. This week the Governor's Office questioned witnesses about the agency itself and its procurement and bidding practices.

The news that NASA workers are likely to be lured away to a neighboring state with the help of the aerospace industry will add to the agency's woes, but it is not clear what Space Florida or the state can do.

"We ought to work as hard as we can to keep them here," Gov. Charlie Crist, who hadn't heard of the negotiations, told the Sentinel on Tuesday evening. "They haven't gone anywhere yet, have they?"

'Would be a great loss'

Florida's big hope in Tallahassee this lawmaking session is an effort to give tax rebates to private companies willing to launch from the commercial-rocket pad Space Florida hopes to build at Cape Canaveral.

Crist didn't recommend spending any more money on the complex after lawmakers devoted $14.5 million to its $60 million price tag last year, and key lawmakers have said they planned to freeze $10 million of that money until the agency completes a master plan for the facility.

Now the hope of retaining shuttle workers for a thriving commercial space sector in Florida could take another blow.

"If that happens, that would be a great loss to the strides we have made," said Rep. Dean Cannon, R- Winter Park, a future House speaker who has been critical of the state agency but helped secure funding for the launch complex last year. "That would be not only a loss for Space Florida, but a loss for the state."

President Barack Obama dashed the hopes of thousands of shuttle workers last week when he agreed to continue a Bush plan to retire the shuttle in 2010.

Many shuttle workers and Florida policymakers had been hoping Obama might keep flying the shuttle a little longer.

Engineers might flee now

Now that shuttle workers know they will soon be unemployed there is a fear that some of the most skilled engineers could start looking for other jobs and leaving now.

NASA has long been worried about keeping the shuttle's top engineers in the program until the very last mission to make sure that the aging spaceships are able to launch and return safely without incident.

NASA insiders say the shuttle contractor USA has been talking to the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce about securing jobs with the Missile Defense Agency after the shuttle is retired as a way to keep their top workers in the shuttle program until the very end.

By 2011, the Missile Defense Agency will employ more than half of its 9,000-employee work force in Alabama as part of a massive Defense Department reorganization.

"We are working with our government and the United Space Alliance to recruit and attract workers from their operations [in Florida] and across the country as they become available," said Lucia Cape, vice president for work force at the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce.

Cape said that since last summer, the chamber was interested in the skills of the shuttle engineers but was reluctant to be seen as poaching crucial employees from an important NASA program.

"So we approached USA last summer and asked that we work in partnership with them to make sure their needs were met, make sure the shuttle's needs were met and to make sure we were a resource for their employees to go to when they became dislocated," she said.

'Obviously concerned'

A spokesman for Sen. Bill Nelson said the Florida Democrat plans to focus his efforts on closing the gap between the shuttle's 2010 retirement and the 2015 first mission of its successor, Constellation, which faces several financial and technical hurdles.

"We are obviously concerned about the loss of jobs ... [but] this isn't just a jobs issue," said Nelson spokesman Dan McLaughlin. "It's much, much broader when you talk about what will happen to the country" when the U.S. space fleet is grounded for five years.

But with skepticism mounting on whether the NASA Constellation moon program will be ready to fly in six years, the best hope for the Space Coast may lie with President Obama, who could stem the brain drain to Alabama by reducing funding to the Missile Defense Agency.

The new commander in chief has not been a big fan of the system and recently signaled to Russia that he would consider abandoning plans to install missile-defense sites in Eastern Europe if Moscow would aid in stopping Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

No firm commitments have been made, however.

Robert Block can be reached at rblock@orlandosentinel.com or 321-639-0552. Aaron Deslatte can be reached at 850-222-5564 or adeslatte@orlandosentinel.com. Mark K. Matthews, who reported from Washington, can be reached at mmatthews@orlandosentinel.com or 202-824-8222.