Florida's 'Space Coast' looks beyond the Shuttle

NPR: Along Florida's "Space Coast," people are worrying about what the end of the shuttle program will mean for workers and the region's economy. For many who live and work here, the looming end of the space shuttle brings back memories of the 1970s. Within just a few years of men landing on the Moon, the workforce at the Kennedy Space Center was cut from 25,000 employees to less than half that. The ripple effects from those layoffs, Koller recalls, devastated Florida communities from Titusville to Melbourne. The replacement for the space shuttle, Constellation, and the other future NASA programs at Cape Canaveral will require far fewer people than those needed for the space shuttle. Lynda Weatherman, of the area's economic development commission, says it's important that Florida's Space Coast diversify its aerospace industry and the role it plays in the nation's space program. "We don't want to rely on launch. We can't afford to rely on launch," she says.