Colorado won a slice of the future this past week when NASA awarded Lockheed Martin a $3.9 billion contract to build the next generation of space vehicle.
The decision puts a key Colorado company at the forefront of space exploration and the high-tech 21st century economy.
Lockheed Martin’s space systems division is based in the foothills of Jefferson County, and the state could reap more than $500 million in economic benefits over the next seven years with the production of Orion.
“This is the last manned-spaceflight vehicle for our generation, and the engineering is going to be done in Jefferson County,” said Preston Gibson, president of the Jefferson Economic Council. “It’s a contract that’s not just your standard run-of-the-mill win.”
Mulling the global headaches of 2006, it’s easy to be pessimistic about the world spinning beneath us.
But on the subject space travel, there’s boundless optimism. Space, to borrow an old line, really is the final frontier, and it’s downright spine-tingling to fathom the discoveries that await us beyond our present reach.
And the next generation of space travel technology will be developed here.
The six-passenger Orion spacecraft isn’t expected to make its first manned space flight for eight years, but someday it will take United States astronauts back to the moon and eventually to Mars. NASA hopes to go back to the moon by 2020.
Orion will be designed to look somewhat like the three-man Apollo command module that lifted America’s hopes and dreams in the 1960s and ’70s.
And, like the space shuttles of the past three decades, Orion will carry cargo to and from the international space station.
Unlike the shuttles, which touch down like airplanes, Orion will splash into the seas on its return to Earth. But, unlike its Apollo brethren, Orion will be able to float in space for months, not days.
“Given the nature of Orion, it’s much more far-reaching than the jobs and the wages,” said Tom Clark of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. “It’s really about your position long-term as a dominant player in the aerospace industry.”
Colorado currently boasts the third-largest space economy in the nation with 164,500 space-related jobs – meaning it’s one of our most powerful and exotic economic engines.
The main Orion program will be based in Houston, but Lockheed’s space-systems division actually won the contract. The résumés were rolling in on Friday – Lockheed Martin is expected to bring at least 450 new high-paying jobs to Colorado, with the Orion workforce here growing to 800.
Positions in engineering and research and development will have average salaries of $70,000. Colorado’s median income is about $51,500.
“For most engineers, this about as good as it gets,” said Bill Johns, Lockheed’s chief Orion engineer.
Though Lockheed is the Pentagon’s largest contractor, it wasn’t the front-runner to build Orion. Northrop Grumman, along with its subcontractor, Boeing Co., have been involved with all of the country’s manned space programs, and that team was thought to have had the inside track.
Lockheed’s history with NASA hasn’t always been rosy either. Its last contract for a manned spacecraft ended badly in 2001 when the X-33 space plane project was scuttled because of fuel tank problems. Current-day technology was simply not up to the task.
But Lockheed’s Orion concept takes advantage of proven technologies.
NASA plans on retiring its space shuttle fleet in 2010. The hope is to have Orion in operation in 2014.
It will be exciting to watch a Colorado workforce help develop the vehicles that eventually will take the next generation of space travelers into uncharted territory.
