the Political Aficionado’s Guide to ... T ECHNOLOGY Space Coast Relaunch Commercial industries migrate to the place where spaceflight began BY SCOTT POWERS Florida’s ambitious dream to be the world leader in space industry begins with a cold, hard fact that would surprise most Floridians. Florida has never really had much space industry, just America’s launch site. Like all government-financed industries, America’s space business over its first half-century went where power was centered: the states and districts of leaders of key congressional committees. Space vehicle and components factories, and their jobs, gravitated to states like Alabama, Texas, California, Virginia, and Maryland. The smaller, supply-chain companies and technology consulting firms followed. Local universities hired their retirees and started major space science and technology research programs. Before long, those were the states defining the space industry, and they had the jobs. Sure, the rocket launches mostly came to Cape Canaveral, Florida. But that was like Hollywood making the movies, and then holding their big premieres in New York City. “The history here has always been largely federal, and largely launch,” said Frank DiBello, president and CEO of Space Florida, the state’s chartered company tasked with bringing space industry to Florida. Today, the business is rapidly evolving. Now a spunky, entrepreneurial industry — where it seems anyone with a few billion dollars can start a space company — is emerging. SpaceX Founder Elon Musk has spent hundreds of millions of dollars leasing and redeveloping old launch complexes at Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station to create 21st-century launching and landing platforms. Blue Origin founder Jeff Bezos is building a rocket factory at SpaceFlorida’s Exploration Park, just outside the launch centers’ gates, and is redeveloping his own launch site at an old launch complex. OneWeb Satellites founder Greg Wyler, backed by Airbus, is set to begin construction on a satellite factory across the street. Old-guard companies Lockheed Martin and Boeing are assembling spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center. SpaceFlorida leased the old shuttle landing facility at Kennedy, intending to turn it into a multi-use, three-mile-long runway for an industrial park. And notwithstanding delays caused by industry “anomalies” (usually rockets that blow up), Kennedy and the adjacent Cape Canaveral are hosting more rocket launches now than ever. Rockets are blasting off one or two a month now, and that pace is only expected to increase over the next several years. >> WINTER 2016 INFLUENCE | 29 PHOTO: Courtesy NASA
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