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Thanks To the Private Space Industry, Things Are Looking Up For Space City USA
gallifreyan99 writes When the shuttle program was ended, and manned space exploration was put on hold, the people of Titusville, Florida were left in big trouble. "Just 20 miles northwest of Kennedy Space Center in Florida, it used to have a proud nickname: Space City USA. The dizzying boom of the 1950s and '60s helped create myriad jobs by giving work to nearby aerospace companies. Unfortunately, the past 15 years have seen everything dry up By December 2010, Titusville had one of the America's highest unemployment rates, 13.8 percent." But even though there's been plenty of bad news recently, the city hopes that the private space industry can save it from destruction.
You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
i always thought space city USA should be the name of the first lunar colony
Two boosters for every boy!
I bought a 67 Soyuz and we call it a capsule
(Space City, here we come)
You know it's not very cherry, it's an oldie but a goody
(Space City, here we come)
Well, it ain't got a back seat or a rear window
But it gets me in orbit where I wanna go
And we're goin' to Space City, 'cause it's two to one
You know we're goin' to Space City, gonna have some fun
Ya, we're goin' to Space City, 'cause it's two to one
You know we're goin' to Space City, gonna have some fun, now
SpaceX is hiring every girl and boy...
And if my Soyuz breaks down on me somewhere out in orbit
(Space City, here we come)
I'll strap my oxy tanks to my back and hitch a ride in my spacesuit
(Space City, here we come)
And when I get to Space City I'll be shootin' the horizon
And checkin' out the parties for a surfer girl
And we're goin' to Space City, 'cause it's two to one
You know we're goin' to Space City, gonna have some fun
Ya, we're goin' to Space City, 'cause it's two to one
Ya, we're goin' to Space City, gonna have some fun, now
Two boosters for every
Two SpaceX launches for every girl and boy...
Tune: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Ignore the lyrics on that one. They're WRONG!
For all its faults, I still rue the fact the Shuttle program was canned. They where great little spacecraft, and really should have just been upgraded rather than canned.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
I think the best approach would be a hybrid one. Though healthcare sector is NOT any sort of 'role model'. Companies like SpaceX clearly have a lot to bring to the table in terms of innovation and bringing costs down, but to achieve large, visionary goals for man, will probably be helped a lot by government funding.
There is a myth though that anything to do with space is hideously unaffordably expensive. If you look at the actual numbers, this isn't really true. E.g. NASA's annual budget is just 0.5% of the money we blew on the Iraq War.
American healthcare system is not really "private" unless you consider a fasco-Corporatist system with government-protected cartels and monopolies and protections an example of a "private" system. I don't.
My other UID is three digits.
the US has the worst healthcare system of any developed nation, and it is privately run.
And yet, where do people want to be treated when they contract Ebola? What nations have active R&D for an Ebola vaccine? A Malaria vaccine? And in India, who actually uses the state run healthcare when private is an option? And in the U.K., how do you skip the NHS wait queue for something like hernia surgery? And in Canada, where do you go when the government health care system refuses to fix your knee because you're a computer programmer, and having a working knee is not necessary to your job function?
I guess there is room for a *little* privatization...
I know everyone likes to criticize NASA, but they have pulled off some extraordinary research on their really tight budgets. E.g. the initial cost for the Kepler Spacecraft mission was just something like $600million - and that project has quietly and with little fanfare achieved some of the most potentially history-changing research in the history of astronomy. (Why? Because for the first time in human history we are not only discovering many potentially 'earth-like' worlds, but actually basically starting to build the first "maps" of the planets in our galaxy - these are basically the first maps that will be used when we start sending probes to, and then later traveling to and colonizing other star systems - historians of the future will understand the significance in hindsight in a way few seem to grasp today.)
My other UID is three digits.
It's Florida, and they're on the coast. Global warming should fix this by the time a few decades are up. If I were them I'd sell everything now and get what I could, then move north to the hills in Georgia. It'll be beach front by the next century. At least their decedents can enjoy it if they can keep the property in the family.
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
I can certainly see why they might *hope* for such things, but "things are looking up" would suggest that they're *already* starting to take form, and I saw no evidence of that when skimming the article.
And personally, if I were preparing to go to space I'd rather not have my last days planet-side be spent grounded by bad weather, feeding voracious mosquito swarms, and trying to find some way to shed heat in the oppressive humidity.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
I lived in Titusville for two years covering the end of the space shuttle program and the private space industry is not going to save that area. Most of T'ville's problems are self-inflicted and, even as businesses continue to close and young people can't move away fast enough, government leaders are not investing the kind of money in the type of projects it would take to attract new businesses.
For decades T'ville was anti-growth and most of the policies still cling to the dying relic of the area, which is a study in decay and abandonment. Titusville is a craphole and there's little to recommend the area. It's ironic they're still looking for space-industry solutions to save them.
Titusville is not yet Detroit, a city verging on complete decay.
The author obviously didn't spend much time there because that whole area is decaying. The restaurant he was talking about is called Dixie Crossroads down on Garden and it's not a place locals frequent, not that there are a lot of options.
And I'm still not convinced that NASA is the right organization to define the future of space travel, but that's a different discussion.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Full disclosure: I lived at Patrick AFB in the 1980s, in Cape Canaveral for the 1990s and have lived in Rockledge (20 mi South of Titusville) since 2000. But I don't work in the space industry.
Apparently the author of the linked article can't read a map (or GPS). Titusville is just over 9 (yes, NINE) miles DUE WEST of the VAB and just over 10 miles North-West of the main cluster of NASA admin and misc buildings, Titusville is only 20 miles NW of the waters outside Port Canaveral.
As for the reduction in unemployment from about ~13% to ~6%, it appears to be almost entirely from population loss rather than any form of job growth. One of the ex-NASA folks I was talking to believes that the private space companies are bad for the area because they bring their own people from out-of-town to work their launches instead of hiring experienced locals. I don't know if that's true, but everyone else I ever knew that worked at the space center moved away after everything shut down.
The hotel I stayed at was literally the worst hotel I have ever stayed at, and I've been to some crapholes. My friend with me wouldn't even sleep in the bed unless we first ran to a store and bought all kinds of bug sprays and disinfectants. Even the clean towels were dirty. Half the buildings were already boarded up.
And it was all worth is because we had a good time at the Space Park (which was like $65 to get in), and the launch of STS135 was awesome, even if it was a bit cloudy. There's a nice Air Museum there, we got to fly in the Military version of the DC-3 (C-47?), which gave us a nice aerial view of NASA.
But Titusville itself? The craphole of crapholes. There was almost nothing left to the town when I was there and that was more than 2 years ago. My guess was the hotel was going to be burned down after we left to claim the insurance. Another guest found a 9mm pistol in the parking lot and asked us if she should turn it in to the police -- as if that was a question!
It seems to me that the entire town depends upon tourism, and there simply isn't anything there other than NASA, which is now a shadow of it's former self. And tourism isn't something a town should depend upon, just ask those towns along Route 66.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
healthcare - the US has the worst healthcare system of any developed nation, and it is privately run
Only deluded ideologues think that the US health care system is privately run. Yes it has elements that are privately run but you cannot ignore Medicare or Medicaid because they are the 800lb gorilla in the system. Insurance companies generally follow whatever pricing Medicare sets. Our more conservative leaning citizens often like to live with the illusion that private always equals better (sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't) and that our system is a private system but in reality is it is a public/private hybrid system with the public parts (Medicare mostly) leading the private parts on pricing.
As for the "worst healthcare system" comment, that is nonsense. Most expensive? No argument. But expensive != worst at least not by itself. Guess where all that nifty technology that the rest of the world gets to use is developed? More often than not, right here in the US - and we incur a lot of the cost for it. The US healthcare system has economic problems but the actual ability to treat disease is second to none. While I certainly won't argue that the overall US health care system is the best in the world (it clearly is not) I would absolutely argue that it isn't the worst either.
I guess I *have* to post something, since I have lived in Titusville for a while, and also lived in the region for a shorter time in the early shuttle program days.
I have worked on the shuttle program and currently work in commercial space.
Titusville is just a small town in Florida, always has been, and almost certainly always will be. That isn't necessarily a bad thing if that is what you are looking for.
And, as others have mentioned, has been famously "anti-growth" during many periods in history. Which probably hasn't been that helpful when growth was a little more active around here.
The city has had a complex relationship with the space program and the tourist industry in Florida. Most of the "decay" are overly ambitious structures from the Apollo days (IE malls and large resort hotels). They were pretty run down even in the early "boom" days of the shuttle program. They have only suffered more under the extreme impact of the shuttle program shutdown.
In some cases, this was turned around into finally demolishing these structures and replacing them with something more appropriate for the area. There are newer hotels of the normal "big box" type on the interstate exits now, and most of the riverfront "resorts" are gone or converted to other purposes.
Like every town (in Florida particularly), attempts are made to attract tourism. There have been a number of failed schemes since the Apollo days. Before my time, there was a jungle park owned by Johnny Weismuller of "Tarzan" fame, there was a tacky "JFK" museum in the shuttle days, etc. etc. It all looks so good when you are surrounded by "big tourism". Orlando to the west, Daytona Beach and St. Augustine to the north, the Cape Canaveral cruise ports to the east. But, it's just those places that mean you are generally bypassed for activities that they all do better.
The space center is a huge tourist attraction, but you mostly get tourists from Orlando who just come out to the center and then head back.
And remember, Titusville is a "river front" town, not "ocean front". That makes a huge difference.
On the plus side, We do have access to unspoiled beach and wildlife in the national parks north of the space center. It is a great locale for fishing and boating. In spite of them letting *me* in, lots of smart and industrious folks live here (either retired or still active from the space center). It is a short drive to just about any tourist activity you would like to participate in (beaches, theme parks, etc.). But, like most small towns, it is short on great night spots, trendy food places, hip hotels and boutique shopping. But it has tiny, small-town versions of most of this stuff too.
Not a town booster, but it's really a pretty routine place of its type, just twisted a bit with all the big ups and downs of the biggest local industry. Any improvements in the employment numbers can't help but be a boost to the community (and others in the region). That isn't much of a mystery when you took the hit of the shuttle shutdown.