Lockheed Martin’s victorious bid to build the capsule that will take astronauts to the moon and beyond will return a generous measure of stardust to Colorado’s space programs.
The state has been known as an incubator for astronauts, Titan rockets and aerospace defense systems, but Lockheed’s lead role on the Orion crew exploration vehicle will establish Colorado as a key player in President Bush’s “Vision for Space Exploration.”
The contract “puts a stake in the middle of the map of the United States that will be very difficult to dislodge,” said Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo.
Among other things, experts say, it could attract some of the country’s most talented scientists and encourage a generation of young Coloradans to study math and science so they also can shoot for the stars.
Lockheed won a $3.9 billion contract Thursday to build Orion and said it expects to have 600 employees in Colorado working on the project by the end of the year.
Its Jefferson County-based Space Systems unit works on launch systems, unmanned spacecraft, space science, missile systems and remote sensing. Although all are lucrative and vital, none of those specialties carries the allure of building a capsule that will carry humans into space.
“The human adventure still has the most appeal to us,” said Colorado Springs-based Space Foundation president Elliot Pulham. “By having Colorado intimately connected to the human exploration program, people will start thinking about us more as the space state that we are.”
Fifty-five rockets were launched worldwide last year, Pulham said, but “the only one that people paid attention to was the shuttle.”
“When you’re watching a large rocket launch a big communication satellite, that’s pretty exciting. But when you’re watching a space shuttle and you know there are six or seven human beings on board, it’s a totally different experience,” he said. “It’s a human connection.”
Wings Over the Rockies Air and Space Museum president Greg Anderson compares astronauts to seafaring explorers “who left the comfort of home for the excitement of what was out there.”
“Now that the terrestrial frontier has been pretty well explored, there are very few frontiers that are unknown. (Space) engages people’s minds and motivation to wonder about what’s out there,” he said.
No moon trips since ’72
Humans last visited the moon in 1972. At the time, said former shuttle astronaut Bruce McCandless, “we all figured it would only be a very short period of time before we established a permanent presence on the moon.
“We certainly never thought there would be a 30-year hiatus. We never realized the potential of the moon. Pardon the expression, but we just barely scratched the surface,” he said.
McCandless went on to work as a NASA Apollo engineer and at Lockheed Martin before retiring this year.
He now lives in Conifer and works as a part-time contractor for Lockheed.
“It’s very gratifying to me to see that our team won and also to see that we’re really serious. We’re putting our country’s money onto this program,” McCandless said.
That investment will have both short- and long-term implications for Colorado and the nation.
People already working in the aerospace industry began jockeying for spots on the Orion team long before the contract was awarded.
“Everybody who is on this program begged to get on this program,” said Lockheed’s Orion deputy program manager Larry Price.
Vanessa Aponte turned down jobs at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston and Sandia National Laboratories in order to be part of the crew that builds the Orion spacecraft. A new aerospace engineer, she finished her Ph.D. from the University of Colorado at Boulder this year and went to work for Lockheed.
“I took a gamble, and it paid off,” she said. “It’s human nature to explore.”
Inspiration for students
Lockheed’s come-from-behind win demonstrates “a Right Stuff mentality that says, ‘We can get things done. Whether the odds are steep or the challenge difficult, we can step up to it,’ ” Pulham said.
That kind of mettle, combined with the mysteries of space, also may drive students into math, science and engineering classes.
That happened when Apollo astronauts were exploring space in the 1960s and 1970s, he said. The ebb and flow of enrollment in U.S. advanced engineering programs tracks with the highs and lows of the space program.
“This stuff really excites (students),” Pulham said. “To be able to say, ‘This spacecraft is something that your friends in Denver are working on,’ has fantastic potential in our classrooms.”
For Lockheed, the contract’s $3.9 billion purse may not seem so significant after it is shared with subcontractors. Yet NASA work will bring exposure that is more significant than the funding.
“Their name is going to be at the forefront of almost all of these efforts,” Caceres said.
That kind of publicity can bring priceless fame, but it also can bring infamy. Very public design failures and spacecraft disasters make lasting impressions.
“Colorado is one of the key states we depend on to be successful,” said NASA press secretary Dean Acosta.
Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi can be reached at 303-954-1488 or kyamanouchi@denverpost.com.
Staff writer Katy Human can be reached at 303-954-1910 or khuman@denverpost.com.
