NASA’s space shuttle program has launched five shuttles on 135 flights since the original launch of the Columbia in April 1981. Each shuttle was designed to last 100 launches, though none of them flew more than 39 times. | Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons
NASA’s final shuttle mission, STS-135, was completed without any major problems, and the Atlantis along with its crew returned to Earth 13 days later on July 21.
“Today, Americans across the country watched with pride as four of our fellow citizens blasted off from the Kennedy Space Center in the Space Shuttle Atlantis, and America reached for the heavens once more,” President Barack Obama said in a statement on July 8, shortly after the final launch of NASA’s Space Shuttle program.
But as the Atlantis rolled to a stop, Americans were left with a question: What’s next?
In the long term, Obama has charged NASA with the mission of leaving Earth’s orbit and ultimately sending Americans to Mars, but in the meantime thousands of NASA employees and contractors have been left jobless.
“The plan was to have a little bit of overlap with Constellation,” United Space Alliance employee James Shepherd said during an interview in April, but the Bush-era program was canceled by Obama in 2010.
“Anyone working on the space shuttle, their position is pretty much going away. (United Space Alliance) has some job positions internally,” Shepherd said. “If Constellation was allowed to continue, there would probably be more positions available to transition to.”
But cutting Constellation may have been a good move, ex-NASA contractor Jeff Larson said in April, as private companies can be far more efficient than a large governmental agency like NASA.
“Just shipping money to NASA does not automatically generate new technologies and new capabilities in space,” Larson said.
“Just look at some of these small start-ups like Space X and what they are able to accomplish in terms of putting hardware together and flying and testing it versus the amount of money that was spent on Constellation,” Larson said. “Most of these companies could have done (Constellation) for a fraction of what it cost NASA.”
Many of those laid off due to the closing of the shuttle program have experience with real time operations, and that isn’t the kind of experience that private space flight companies are looking for, Shepherd said.
“What you are facing right now is a difference between what the company needs versus what the job skills are,” Shepherd said. “We are the real time operations, and there’s no vehicle to operate. They don’t need that skill set right now. At some point they will need that, but not yet.”
But by the time the real time operators are needed, they will likely have moved on to other industries, Larson said.
“Most of the people who were laid off will leave the industry for good, that’s the sad reality,” he said.
“I would love to be in a position where when this starts picking up, I could jump back in, but I am going to have to do something in the meantime, and I think that everyone is going to be in that boat.”
For now, NASA’s only option for getting astronauts to space will be with the Russian space agency, called Roscosmos, Larson said.
“We have already been using the Russian Soyuz vehicle since 1995 to supplement the US Space Shuttle as a means of getting US astronauts into orbit,” said Larson. “It is now the exclusive means for Americans to reach space.”
The US and Russia have an agreement supplying a fixed number of seats to orbit. It currently costs $51 million per seat, and that price will climb to $62 million per seat when the contract expires, Larson said.
Space X, a private space travel company, could be ready to launch its latest spacecraft, the Falcon Heavy, as soon as 2013, said Space X CEO and CTO Elon Musk in a press conference on April 5.
The Falcon Heavy will be capable of carrying over 100,000 pounds of cargo, which is twice the capacity of a space shuttle, into low earth orbit, allowing it to make trips to the International Space Station, Musk said.
“The Falcon Heavy will be the first ever rocket to break the $1,000 per-pound-to-orbit barrier, less than a tenth as much as the shuttle,” Space X said in a press release in July.
“We’re expecting a significant work force increase (in Texas)… I expect it to probably more than double over the next few years,” said Musk. “We’ve more than doubled the size of our rocket development facility in Texas… And that’s in anticipation of a lot more growth.”
Academics nationwide have also been affected by the changes, said Dr. Karolos Grigorialdis, head of UH’s Aerospace Engineering program.
“Our Aerospace Engineering Graduate program has experienced some reduced enrollment due to the changes in NASA’s mission and the Space Shuttle retirement,” Grigorialdis said.
However, the lull in enrollment is not expected to continue.
“Houston will remain a strong center of space activity and our program will be there to support the aerospace engineering workforce with advanced education,” Grigorialdis said.
Many graduates with training in aerospace engineering and similar fields will not be affected by the changes in the space industry, as the usefulness of those degrees is determined largely by commercial and military aircraft businesses and not by space, Larson said.
“The job outlook in Houston for people with good technical skills is generally good, so long as you’re not trying to find a job in the space sector,” Larson said. “Many of my former co-workers are finding jobs with energy companies.”
But to those students with their eyes on the stars, Grigorialdis offers some advice.
“There is no substitute for hard work and acquiring fundamental knowledge. The future technology problems and challenges of space exploration and commercialization will be very different from today’s.”
