A lot of Jobs are predicted at Spaceport Camden or as a result of other businesses supporting the facility. But the industry model is that the majority of operations and manufacturing jobs are at each company's headquarters with few jobs at the launch site. Certainly there will be initial construction jobs and perhaps jobs cleaning up the toxic waste site. But those are not permanent jobs. It has been frustratingly difficult to find out how many permanent jobs have been created at other spaceports but we have found a few clues to what the history has been. There are not many space companies to begin with, and they are not all financially strong, and even fewer can afford to build Spaceport Camden.
So who will produce the jobs?
A Tale of Two Counties
Virginia's Accomack County is the home to NASA's Wallops Flight Center and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport. Over 16,000 rockets have been launched there since its founding in 1945. The rocket in the photo is the Orbital Sciences Antares that exploded on launch in October, 2014. Could the economic impact of Space on Accomack County also be the future of Camden's Spaceport?
This is a picture of the SpaceX control room during the Kennedy Space Center launch on December 20, 2014. All of these people work in Hawthorne, California. SpaceX manufacturing is also in Hawthorne. On January 9, 2016, SpaceX had 8 job openings at Cape Canaveral and 209 at Hawthorne.
No Jobs in Oklahoma...
The only customer for Oklahoma's Burns Flat Spaceport was RocketPlane who stayed long enough to take $18,000,000 in Oklahoma Tax Credits before moving to Wisconsin. The company then went into bankruptcy, and are now called Kistler Space Systems. KSS has a nice web site, but no mail address, email address, or website updates since 2013. And apparently 2 employees. OK's Spaceport has no space customers.
Few Jobs at Alaska Spaceport
Alaska Aerospace lays off 5 Kodiak-based workers
August 21, 2012
AP Staff Writer, The Associated Press
KODIAK, Alaska (AP) — The Alaska Aerospace Corp. has laid off five workers, or 20 percent of its Kodiak workforce, after a launch was delayed a year to 2014. Interim CEO Craig Campbell tells the Kodiak Daily Mirror that the corporation also must stay within its $8 million budget set by the Alaska Legislature. The layoffs included an engineer, a safety officer, two technicians and a scheduler, all based at the Kodiak launch complex. The layoffs do not alter the corporation's plans to expand for use by larger rockets. Once those launches are scheduled, Campbell anticipates refilling the positions.
Kodiak (Alaska) Daily Mirror,http://www.kodiakdailymirror.com
There's a lot to be learned from this short news story . . .
Aerospace and defense contractor Orbital ATK closing Clearwater facility
Monday, August 31, 2015 5:50pm
Orbital ATK, a Virginia-based aerospace and defense firm, plans to close a Clearwater manufacturing facility by spring. The closure of the facility at 13133 34th St. N is expected to be completed by April and could result in up to 99 job losses, the company said. Employees were notified in July.
Nancy Stoehr-Campbell, an Orbital ATK spokeswoman, said the company is relocating its Pinellas County operations to Northridge, Calif. to consolidate manufacturing "to give the best value to customers."
Probably No ULA Manufacturing Jobs to Camden
The new IAMAW contract covers approximately 860 represented bargaining unit employees from District Lodges #75, #166 and #725 which includes Locals #44, #610, #1163, #2024 and #2786 performing work for the Atlas V, Delta II and Delta IV Programs at both east and west coast ULA Launch Operations and Decatur Manufacturing Facility.
AEROJET ROCKETDYNE LAYS OFF 65 EMPLOYEES WITH MORE CUTS POSSIBLY ON THE WAY
JASON RHIAN MAY 12TH, 2015
According to sources within the aerospace industry, rocket engine manufacturer Aerojet Rocketdyne laid off an estimated 65 of its workers this past week. The decision to close out these positions comes at a time when the company is recovering from issues encountered with the aerospace firm’s AJ26 rocket engine, which was involved with the loss of Orbital ATK’s Antares booster and its payload of a Cygnus spacecraft bound for the International Space Station.
In 2013, AL.com reported that Aerojet Rocketdyne could bring as many as 5,000 new aerospace engineering jobs to Huntsville, Alabama, the location of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. However, since that time, several events have transpired that appear to have altered the company’s trajectory.