1,200 NASA Layoffs, Shuttle Fuel Tank Plant Shuts Down 236
As the space shuttle program winds down, 1,200 NASA workers were laid off today, and thousands more will lose their jobs in the months ahead. "Many shuttle workers held out hope that they could find new jobs in the Constellation program, which would have included two new rocket systems and a new crew module to transport astronauts into space. From the beginning, Constellation was plagued by underfunding. This year, Obama killed the program's future funding because of budget overruns and because it was behind schedule. That could affect more than 20,000 workers along Florida's space coast, according to Rice." This comes alongside news that Lockheed Martin has stopped work at the production plant that supplied 136 external fuel tanks for the space shuttles since 1973.
Re:Newly laid-off NASA worker looking for work (Score:1, Informative)
Why is this marked "Flamebait", he's right on the ball. We have private companies that produce better results, higher level technology, and at a cheaper price than NASA ever had. These people should be out of job.
So probably 2,000,000,000 hole in economy. (Score:3, Informative)
That's going to hurt. 2 billion dollars. Perhaps more.
Bush ended the Shuttle program in 2004, not Obama (Score:5, Informative)
What Obama is ending is Bush's proposed "shuttle replacement" program, the Constellation. Much as I'd like to see space exploration continue, if the Constellation is already behind schedule and over budget I can understand it. Especially in this current climate.
It's definitely going to hurt Democrats in Florida though.
Re:Bush ended the Shuttle program in 2004, not Oba (Score:3, Informative)
The Constellation is the official Shuttle replacement. Wasn't there an unofficial replacement being designed (and maybe developed) by ex-NASA guys? That was cheaper, on-schedule and likely to actually work?
More accurately... (Score:3, Informative)
"This year, Obama killed the program's future funding because of budget overruns and because it was behind schedule."
Two things:
1) The shuttle program was killed years ago by a previous President. It's been a long time winding down the program, but its fate was sealed well before the 2008 election.
2) The Ares 1, even if completed, would have had serious operational deficiencies. It may be worth paying a lot for a launcher that works well for the mission at hand, but it's been clear for a long time that Ares was never going to be that launcher.
Re:Bush ended the Shuttle program in 2004, not Oba (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Bush ended the Shuttle program in 2004, not Oba (Score:3, Informative)
I haven't heard about that. Love to see some info it.
Check out more here. [wikipedia.org]
Re:How depressing (Score:5, Informative)
The 2010 NASA Authorization bill recently passed by Congress [go.com] mandates a new vehicle called the Space Launch System that will have to lift a minimum of 70 tons, evolvable to 130 tons with a second stage.
The bill states that the vehicle will have to be completed by the end of 2016 within a budget of $11.5 billion.
The only real option for a rocket of this capacity that can be built within this time and budget is something like the DIRECT architecture. NASA still has to decide the specifics though.
Re:Space X (Score:3, Informative)
False. A significant portion of the development cost of Falcon 9 came from NASA funding under the COTS contract.
Re:seriously (Score:2, Informative)