Obama to sell his space policies in Florida

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - President Barack Obama travels to Florida on Thursday to sell his vision of a reoriented U.S. space exploration program that could spell job losses in this state as well as Texas and Alabama.

Obama proposes to retire U.S. space agency NASA's three-ship shuttle fleet, after each spacecraft makes one more flight this year to supply the International Space Station, and also to cancel President George W. Bush's planned follow-on program to return astronauts to the moon.

Obama's space plan, yet to be approved by Congress, would boost NASA's budget by $6 billion over five years for research and technology development for manned missions to asteroids, Mars and other possible solar system destinations.

The president also endorses using private companies' rockets to carry astronauts and cargo to the space station.

His plan has caused alarm in the space industry centers of Florida, an electoral battleground state, and Texas, where many see the dropping of moon rocket development and resulting job losses hurting communities at a time of economic hardship.

An estimated 23,000 jobs will be lost in Florida, including space workers and related services, according to the state's aerospace economic development agency. Texas forecasts about 6,000 job cuts and more are feared in Alabama.

"It is terrible that they eliminated any driving destination for NASA," said Robert Zubrin, a Colorado-based aerospace engineer and founder of the Mars Society, an exploration advocacy group.

"That in and of itself would essentially guarantee that NASA's human space flight program accomplishes nothing for the next 10 years," Zubrin added.

Critics say Obama's space strategy would undermine U.S. leadership of space exploration at a time when, besides Russia, emerging powers like China and India are quickly developing space capabilities.

"It's an insult. The people are there to open the space frontier. They're not there for welfare," Zubrin said.

"I believe (the Obama administration) will break from their policy. It would be incredible for me to think that he's not, because you can't sell that policy in Florida."

RUSSIAN SOYUZ CAPSULES

In addition to keeping the space station in orbit through 2020, the new plan proposes to use $6 billion of taxpayer money to seed development of commercially operated space taxis, which is expected to cost less than the $51 million per seat Russia now charges to ferry astronauts to and from the space station.

That Russian space seat price goes up to $55 million in 2013. How many new jobs will be created by the new U.S. commercial space transport opportunities remains to be seen.

The shuttles' retirement leaves Russian Soyuz capsules as the only way to fly astronauts to the space station. China, the only other country that has launched people into orbit, is not part of the 16-nation space station partnership.

If Obama on Thursday lays out a new challenge to visit an asteroid or puts a date on a trip to Mars, it apparently would come as news to NASA, which last week spelled out plans on how his new initiatives will be spread among its 10 field centers.

"We're expanding the frontiers of exploration beyond the wildest dreams of the early space pioneers," NASA administrator Charlie Bolden told reporters last week. "It's different in the way that the vision is to be enacted. It involves commercial entities in a way that we have not chosen to do in the past."

The problem with the now-canceled moon program, known as Constellation, was that despite a $9 billion investment, it never received adequate funds to reach its goal of landing astronauts on the lunar surface in 2020, an independent review board concluded last year.

In addition, Constellation sapped funds needed to keep the $100 billion space station flying past 2015. The station, under construction 220 miles above Earth since 1998, is due to be completed this year after three final shuttle flights.

The shuttles are being retired due to cost and safety concerns that surfaced after the 2003 Columbia accident.

For thousands of workers facing layoffs with the end of the shuttle program, Constellation was to be the silver lining.

"I think Obama is going to come down and defend the decision that he's made," said Howard McCurdy, a space policy expert at American University in Washington.

"I don't think he'll say, 'Let's put a human on an asteroid in 2029.' I'd be shocked if he did. My guess is that he will not go so far as to make a major space decision."

Obama is scheduled to fly into the Kennedy Space Center on Thursday and address an invitation-only audience of about 200 people. The speech is expected to be carried live on NASA Television, accessible on the Internet at NASA.gov.