NASA Contracts Aid in New Orleans Recovery
“It’s been a jewel that a lot of people pass on the interstate and don’t really realize is here,” Bray said. “But if you look at the population of New Orleans and Slidell and along the Gulf Coast, you find very technical, qualified people that come into here and make the space program go.”
With New Orleans still struggling to rebuild its economy after Hurricane Katrina, the boost from NASA could not come at a better time with the the route to the moon and perhaps to Mars going through the city of New Orleans.
New Orleans was devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and has not yet recovered—yet the base for it through the foundation of the city’s economy has still remained, upon which NASA is basing its large financial contract through its next-generation space systems at NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility. A $156 million dollar payroll is coming, with some hundreds of thousands of dollars of salaries generating the city’s median annual income about $27,000.
Michoud’s future has previously been rather gloomy, as the space shuttle fuel tanks will be retired when the shuttle programs ends in 2010, and the International Space Station will be completed. Previously one of the region’s largest payrolls, up until now there has been no replacement for Michoud. Three contracts are now in effect that are associated with NASA’s Constellation program, which James Bray, director of Lockheed Martin’s Orion project at Michoud, has called a “sleeping giant” facility for the economy of New Orleans.
Michoud has about 2,400 workers now from the original 5,000 employees in the 80s before the Challenger disaster, and has been a major economic force located in the worst hit area of New Orleans. Unfortunately this area is also the slowest to recover. A huge player in eastern New Orleans, the new Michoud contracts will be the highest raise in economy since the hurricane hit—due to it being the type of facility that uses high-wage, high-skill jobs that help form other types of jobs, making the new contracts a huge asset to a struggling economy.
Once the space shuttle program ends in 2010, it is rather fuzzy what type of employment levels will develop with these new contracts, but the plans are that the Bethesda, MD based Lockheed Martin will build the Orion crew module at the 43-acre plant and the Chicago-based Boeing Company will build the $1.13 billion upper stage of the Ares I launch rocket, in addition to the rocket’s $799.5 million navigation and control system there.
This entry was posted on Saturday, December 29th, 2007 at 6:18 pm and is filed under Mission History, Space Agency News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
