For U. Central Florida aerospace engineering majors, it remains to be seen if the privatization of space exploration may prove to be an out of this world opportunity.
NASA and the Kennedy Space Center are attempting to privatize space exploration. These changes could mean a lot for students hoping to venture into aerospace careers.
The White House and NASA have been making decisions that will greatly affect the job market in space exploration.
First, President Barack Obama and Congress decided to retire the Orion shuttle. The shuttle was expensive and deemed unsafe, according to Dale Ketcham, director of the Spaceport Research and Technology Institute at UCF.
“Ironically, the shuttle is now working better than ever, but it is still $150 million to $200 million per month, whether we’re flying it or not, and the Astronauts Office continues to insist it is not safe,” Ketcham said. “The choice to retire the shuttle is not an easy one, but it is clear.”
Obama then pressed the issue of canceling the Constellation Program. According to Ketcham, the program would consume all of NASA’s funding and still not get America to the moon before 2028.
He said just building the vehicle would use all the money available, leaving nothing to do once we got there.
“Getting back to the moon and just re-planting the flag as we did 60 years before was not deemed sufficiently inspirational,” Ketcham said. “It is hard to argue they’re wrong.”
The next step was to make space exploration competitive by allowing the private sector to compete for providing access to low Earth orbit for crew and cargo.
“Since this is basically technology that we’ve been doing for 50 years, it seems the time is right to redirect NASA’s focus on doing what we haven’t done before, going beyond LEO to Mars, to asteroids, into the solar system,” Ketcham said. “That, they believe, is the ‘inspiration’ the public, and taxpayers, have a right to expect out of NASA.”
So what do these changes mean for aerospace students, particularly ones about to enter the job market? With nearly 7,000 people losing their jobs, some being UCF grads, at Kennedy Space Center, opportunities could seem bleak.
UCF’s involvement in Kennedy Space Center began in 1963, when UCF started as Florida Technological University. Its original purpose was to be an engineering school that could send trained engineering students into the Kennedy Space Center. UCF came to be because the U.S. was in need of space-age trained people. Although the country’s goals for space exploration have changed, this need still exists.
Ketcham argues that privatizing space exploration will only help aerospace engineering students by giving them more options.
“I was at the SpaceX party the night they launched the Falcon 9 vehicle two weeks ago,” he said. “… most of the people personally responsible for the success of the vehicle were in their 20s and 30s.
“It reminded me of when NASA was at its finest. I can think of nothing more inspirational to young people than to see other young people succeeding.”
UCF sends a lot of physicists and engineering majors into the space program at Cape Canaveral, according to Ketcham. UCF is only 45 miles from Cape Canaveral, making it the closest university to the Kennedy Space Center.
Ketcham said that in the short run, commercial space will not be a massive job generator because it is a new concept, and the logistics of it still need to be worked out. SpaceX, Boeing and Lockheed Martin are going to have to test the waters before hiring an influx of people.
“However, in the long run, lowering the cost to get to orbit will create more launches that will create more jobs and make it more attractive to bring non-launch related activity here as the price comes down,” Ketcham said. “That has been the ultimate goal of economic development practitioners here in Florida for more than a generation.”
Ruben Nunez, an aerospace engineering major, agrees that competition will bring the cost of space travel down.
“I think that privatizing space exploration is a good thing, not only because it will be cheaper, but it could lead to space tourism,” Nunez said. “Basically, these companies taking on space exploration will go to great lengths to compete.”
Attempts to privatize space exploration have neither deterred nor encouraged students from becoming aerospace engineering majors. Since fall 2008, the number of aerospace engineering majors has remained stagnant, with about 450 students each term, according to data from UCF’s Office of Institutional Research. Aerospace engineering falls within the College of Engineering and Computer Science.
Ketcham believes the Spaceport Research and Technology Institute will see an increase in
UCF students as a result of the Kennedy Space Center’s new mission.
“I have no doubt that the UCF education activity will increase because of the new changes in Kennedy Space Center’s mission and as a result of the transformations occurring at UCF regarding the Florida Space Institute moving from the engineering department to the Office of Research,” he said.
Larry Chew, an associate professor of aerospace engineering at UCF, agrees to some extent.
“We will continue to feed students into the Cape, but not until further down the line, when more of the private companies start hiring,” he said. “Their skills are still transferrable to many mechanical engineering jobs.”
Nunez believes aerospace engineers will remain in demand at companies like Boeing, Lockheed and SpaceX, but not right away.
“It depends on how things unfold in the next year or so,” he said.