NASA: Lost in Space

Robert Cabana, director of the Kennedy Space Center, in front of the Shuttle Discovery as it awaits one final flight Stefan Ruiz

By Paul M. Barrett

It's 9 a.m., and 100 employees of the Kennedy Space Center are lining up for the chance to do some freelance work. Director Michael Bay will use the famed NASA facility—origin of the Apollo moon shots and home of the flare-winged Space Shuttle—as a backdrop for Transformers 3, the finale of his alien robot war trilogy, a Hollywood tip-of-the-hat to a place that once launched the future. Bay needs extras—and Kennedy has no shortage.

The facility's main mission, launching Space Shuttles, is about to end. Eight thousand engineers, technicians, and other employees are losing their jobs. Nearby towns that were built around NASA's programs—Cape Canaveral, Cocoa Beach, Titusville—are already in a defensive crouch, like wobbly boxers waiting for a knockout punch.

NASA management is holding "morale events" to elevate spirits. A few days before the casting call, agency officials eased security rules to allow employees' families to witness what is expected to be the final "rollout" of the orbiter Discovery. In a majestic evening ceremony, the Shuttle was transported from the 52-story Vehicle Assembly Building to the launchpad. Bathed in xenon spotlights, the white spaceship, attached to its twin solid rocket boosters and orange external fuel tank, crept 3.4 miles on the back of an enormous tractor called the Crawler. An armed helicopter and a nearly full moon hovered overhead. Husbands and wives and children stood in a roped-off parking lot next to minivans, clapping and whistling. Some wept.

In February, the Obama Administration abruptly canceled an over-budget program called Constellation that was supposed to take Americans back to the moon for the first time since 1972—and then on to Mars. For 30 years, NASA has flown the Shuttle, built and maintained the International Space Station, and overseen unmanned scientific probes. But no one seems certain where Americans should go next in space. Implicitly acknowledging NASA's lack of direction, the White House has instructed the agency to take a deep breath, marshal resources, and chart a new course. Routine trips to what is known as low earth orbit—the Space Shuttle's traditional responsibility—are supposed to be outsourced to private industry. Trying to protect jobs and existing contracts, Congress has slowed the Obama reform initiative without entirely stopping it. That leaves NASA trapped in what James E. Ball, an agency program manager in Florida, calls "a period of sustained ambiguity." This much is clear: The Shuttle will fly for the last time next year, and NASA has no new manned government rockets ready to go anytime soon. For five years, or maybe more, any American astronaut heading to the heavens will have to get there by renting a seat in a Russian Soyuz capsule or one of the several corporate-owned spacecraft now in development.

Rather than use the end of the three-decade Shuttle program to streamline NASA and sharply articulate new goals for space exploration in a way that would command public attention, much of the political leadership in Washington appears to be ignoring the issue. Communities along Florida's Space Coast, built on the optimism and industry of the space program, are in economic peril. The area's 12 percent unemployment rate—2½ points higher than the national average—is expected to rise to 15 percent over the next year, mostly as a result of the space industry contraction. Meanwhile, as America dithers, Russia, China, India, and other countries are expanding their shares of the space market.

Travis T. Thompson sits in an air-conditioned conference room talking about the end of the Shuttle program. A compact man with a handlebar moustache, he heads the orbiter closeout crew; he's the guy who shakes hands with each astronaut just before they lift off. "You come back and see me now," he tells them. Thompson, 52, speaks of his work with quiet pride. "What I do," he says, "is put astronauts in spaceships and close the hatch."

After three final flights—one scheduled for Nov. 1, two in 2011—the trio of tile-skinned orbiters will be cleaned, stripped of classified gear, and sent to museums. Thompson's job will end. The customized 747s that piggyback Shuttles to Florida after California landings will be retrofitted for less exotic cargo. The mighty Crawler, which ferried Shuttles to the launchpad, will be reduced to hauling more terrestrial freight around the Space Center.