Shooting for the Stars...

So Where's My Job? -- Part II

If you're a NASA engineer, technician or astronaut there's a good chance your job will go up with the vapor trail of the last shuttle mission, which just got a short reprieve because of problems with one of the science experiments, pushing the mission back to November of this year instead of September.

Buzz Aldrin, one of the first men in space, knows what it's like to be bumped off a stellar program. He recently did not got very far on "Dancing with the Stars," the "reality" TV-show that sent him home early, but the former astronaut, who was the second man on the moon, got a good lesson in the "Obama Two-Step," when he witnessed the president launch his plan for space exploration after scuttling the shuttle program at the Kennedy Space Center. Aldrin was front and center, along with other supporters of the president's alternative to NASA's current manned-rocket program.

In its place, the president is proposing a $19 billion investment in NASA to work toward putting astronauts on an asteroid by 2025, shooting beyond the moon into deep space. Meanwhile, short-term, the manned-space program would be left in the hands of commercial rocket companies that will send astronauts to the International Space Station for its care,maintenance and related endeavors.

So, according to the president, the new space initiative will create 5,000 new jobs by 2012 and stimulation a whole new "Silicon Valley for space" in Central Florida with countless opportunities for commercial development and high tech employment. Immediately, however, an estimated 9,000 jobs will be lost when the manned-shuttle missions soon come to an end. As NASA engineers and technicians are laid off, an estimated 14,000 other jobs are expected to be lost in other segments of the space coast economy. That's a hard blow to a region that already suffers from an unemployment rate of 12.6 percent.

Many Floridians are wondering, as a result, why they are getting so much attention from President Obama. First, he journeyed to Tampa to announce federal funding for a high speed rail system along the I-4 corridor to Orlando. And, more recently, the visit to the space coast. First he giveth and then he taketh away. Some are wondering, even hoping, that he's looking for cheap real estate to move to the Sunshine State when he retires? Good luck with that one.

And, That's That...