• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Venango County Tea Party Patriots

A non-partisan, non-profit, non-member, association dedicated to educating the public and promoting the principles of fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government and free market economics, and all other lawful activities.

  • Home
  • Events
  • Alerts
  • Resources
    • Resources – National
    • Resources – Pennsylvania
    • Resources – Venango County
    • Election Voter Registration Resources for Churches
    • Voter Resources
    • Resources – Other Organizations
  • Voter Registration Tools
  • Get Email Alerts
  • Contact Us

Jane Richey / July 15, 2012

Space Program Ends – 7400 out of work – Whose Idea Was This?

A year after NASA ended the three-decade-long U.S. space shuttle program, thousands of formerly well-paid engineers and other workers around the Kennedy Space Center are still struggling to find jobs to replace the careers that flourished when shuttles blasted off from the Florida “Space Coast.”

Some have headed to South Carolina to build airplanes in that state’s growing industry, and others have moved as far as Afghanistan to work as government contractors. Some found lower-paying jobs beneath their technical skills that allowed them to stay. Many are still looking for work and cutting back on things like driving and utilities to save money.

“Nobody wants to hire the old guy,” said Terry White, a 62-year-old former project manager who worked 33 years for the shuttle program until he was laid off after Atlantis landed last July 21. “There just isn’t a lot of work around here. Or if so, the wages are really small.”

White earned more than $100,000 a year at the end of his career at the space center. The prospects of finding a job that pay anywhere near that along the Space Coast are slim.

“I could take an $11-an-hour job that is 40 miles away,” he said “But with gas prices and all that, it’s not really worthwhile.”

More than 7,400 people, who once had labored on one of history’s most complicated engineering achievements, lost their jobs when the shuttle program ended last July. While other shuttle workers in Houston, New Orleans and Huntsville, Ala., lost jobs, those areas had bigger economies to absorb the workers. In less economically diverse Brevard County, the mainly contractor positions cut by NASA accounted for just under 5 percent of the county’s private sectors jobs.

The Kennedy Space Center’s current workforce of 8,500 workers is the smallest in more in than 35 years. In the middle of the last decade, the space center employed around 15,000 workers.

Read more.

Share this:

  • Telegram
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Pocket
  • WhatsApp
  • Print
  • Email

Filed Under: Constitutionally Limited Goverment, Politics Tagged With: Kennedy Space Center, NASA, space program

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Primary Sidebar

Recent Posts

  • Local Candidate “Meet & Greet” – March 2, 2023
  • Sept. 11, 2022 – Patriot’s Day – 2nd Screening
  • So, what’s VCTPP doing to bring Election Integrity back?

Archives

Footer

Contact Us

Venango County Tea Party Patriots
155 Summit Drive
Franklin, PA 16323

Phone
814-671-7110

Email
jane@vctpp.org

Frequently Searched Terms

Agenda 21 Barack Obama Ben Bernanke budget climate change Congress Congressional Budget Office debt deficit Department of Energy Department of Health and Human Services economy environment Environmental Protection Agency EPA Federal Reserve fiscal cliff food stamps fracking gas prices global warming Government Accountability Office Governor Corbett green energy Internal Revenue Service IRS Keystone Pipeline marcellus shale Medicaid Medicare natural gas Obamacare President Obama recession regulations sequestration small businesses Social Security spending cuts stimulus taxes TEA Party unemployment United Nations voter ID

Facebook has been “fact-checking,” blocking and removing conservative posts. Follow us on Telegram.org for unedited access.

Click Here

Follow Us

Follow Us

Copyright © 2023 Venango County Tea Party Patriots · Web Design by OptimusMedia.com · Log in