Regarding yesterday’s Orlando Sentinel editorial “We think: Legislators need to stop the decline of the space industry in Florida,” we at Space Florida firmly agree, and as a State agency, we will continue communicating all of our proactive efforts to address the issues we face within the space community.
As most space industry followers in Florida know, we just came back from the largest ever Space Day turnout in recent history in Tallahassee. A group of industry representatives had the opportunity to speak directly with 36 newly-elected officials to tell the story of space and how crucial it is to Florida’s future.
NASA and the DoD currently wield a significant amount of influence over the success of the space sector in Florida (ex: NASA/KSC was responsible for nearly $1.2 billion in contracts for this region in FY08, a 14% increase over the previous year). In addition to these influences, the State through Space Florida, is aggressively leveraging its relationship with all sectors; with NASA through current and future Constellation work; the Air Force Space Command and its current “Range of the Future” planning and implementation; and, with the National Security Space Office (NSSO), whose national space policy focus includes the following language supporting commercial space:
“The United States is committed to encouraging and facilitating a growing and entrepreneurial U.S. commercial space sector. Toward that end, the United States Government will use U.S. commercial space capabilities to the maximum practical extent, consistent with national security.”
As mentioned in our response to last week’s Sentinel piece, our organization is somewhat limited in what we can discuss publicly, as doing so may jeopardize some of the business dealings we currently have in motion. However, we CAN tell the members of our stakeholder community that we are making great strides in our Spaceport Master Plan, which is currently being integrated with considerations by NASA-KSC, the 45th Space Wing community at Cape Canaveral, and the National Security Space Office (NSSO). Additionally, we anticipate a draft of the first phase of that plan in April, and look forward to sharing some top-level highlights from that draft. At about the same time, a separate architectural engineering and design draft will be available, and will include a rendering of Launch Complex 36. We look forward to sharing that with you.
It is important to note that, in our enabling legislation, Space Florida has the unique ability to develop and own property and infrastructure, acquire and improve existing space equipment and facilities, issue bonds, finance spaceport facilities and research activities, and much more. What this means is that, in addition to our Spaceport Master Plan and activities taking place at Launch Complex 36, we can pursue a wide variety of other opportunities around the state.
As such, we continue to have exciting developments at Launch Complex 46, the Space Life Sciences Laboratory and Reusable Launch Vehicle Hangar at KSC, and across the state in Jacksonville, as we work with the Jacksonville Aviation Authority to assist in FAA licensing for horizontal launch. We are also looking at other sites in south Florida that may foster horizontal launch for space tourism.
From the NASA Constellation front, now that CEV processing and assembly activities are slated to take place in Florida, we continue to pursue additional Constellation elements, as well as supply chain opportunities that may result in securing other portions of NASA’s space exploration work.
In the end, we have a lot to look forward to, and we will continue to share our “Florida wins” with you as the weeks and months progress. We remain positive about Florida’s future and hope that - by continuing to share these accomplishments with Florida’s space community - you will do the same.