Report: Strategic Space Plan for California

Space stakeholders in California are tackling a diverse set of 21st century issues, from the graying of the aerospace workforce to meeting the challenge of global competition.

A California Space Enterprise Strategic Plan 2007-2010 was issued November 30, orchestrated by the California Space Authority (CSA), headquartered in Santa Maria, California. The CSA is a nonprofit corporation representing the state's commercial, civil, and national defense/homeland security interests.

The plan weighed the concerns of industry, government, workforce groups, education and academia to help blueprint further space enterprise development in the state.

"California space enterprise is a major player on the world space stage," noted Mark Crowley, Chairman of CSA's Board of Directors and a Vice President for Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company.

In the report, Crowley observed that California's piece of the global space action accounts for nearly $22 billion worth of space revenues - that's 19 percent of the world's space market. The total economic impact of California space enterprise in 2005, not even including revenues from classified programs, was over $52 billion, with a total job impact of 265,500, he reported.

Diverse interests, workforce worries

Over 200 individuals representing more than 120 companies and organizations participated in the development of the plan. To help coordinate the diverse interests of California space stakeholders, CSA used its California Space Enterprise Advisory Council (SEAC) as a coordinating body. Additionally, the process included face-to-face meetings, telecons, personal interviews, "webinars", group discussion, panels, surveys and electronic inputs.

Highlighted in the report are numbers of California-related space organizations and projects, including: Space and Missile Systems Center at Los Angeles Air Force Base, Vandenberg Air Force Base, the nation's first inland spaceport in Mojave, California, as well as the multi-year mission of the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers - a space exploration endeavor managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

The plan details over 100 specific recommendations. Areas of interest for policy/legislative monitoring and advocacy are identified as well.

One key area particularly troubling is spotlighted in the report - the aging aerospace workforce. Steps are identified in the plan to deal with education and workforce development.

The report underscores a number of workforce worries, such as: weak infrastructure for science and technical education in California for 21st Century learning; lack of motivation/inspiration among students for math and science; lack of real world expertise in schools, education experience in industry; and lack of continuity of efforts across public and private sectors.

Strategic initiative areas and goals

Within the report's pages, areas likely to have significant or even transformational impact on the California space enterprise community are flagged, specifically: space tourism, supply chain transformation, U.S. competitiveness in science and technology, criticality of a 21st century technical workforce, and the newly issued White House space policy.

The over 50-page California Space Enterprise Strategic Plan 2007-2010 is shaped around five strategic initiative areas and goals:

-- Space Business Development, Retention and Growth: Provide a positive, supportive business climate and space enterprise environment, addressing obstacles to and opportunities for California space enterprise competitiveness -- California Space Industrial Base Vitality: Sustain and enhance California's space-related manufacturing and supplier network and its supporting infrastructure

-- Science, Research and Technology Development: Foster and support space-related science, research, technology development and innovation

-- Education and Workforce Development: Enhance space-related education and ensure appropriate 21st Century space workforce

-- Public and Policymaker Awareness: Educate the general public as well as California policymakers -- local, State and Federal -- about the benefits, scope and needs of California space enterprise

Home base for space tourism

California's role in the blossoming space tourism industry is highlighted in the plan.

The space tourism industry officially started in 2001, says the report, when Los Angeles, California-based businessman Dennis Tito lifted off from Russia on a ten-day orbital adventure visiting the International Space Station. Tito was the first individual to personally pay for a space experience.

The space tourism market is for real and one that California is spearheading, said John Spencer, founder of the Space Tourism Society in Los Angeles. He was a participant in the California Space Enterprise Strategic Plan 2007-2010.

"California is home base for much of the space enterprise/tourism industry," Spencer noted, "because it has a unique combination of the aerospace, entertainment, travel/tourism industries, progressive investment community, spaceport infrastructure and huge media resources."

Spencer noted in the plan that California is also home base for space tourism groups such as the X Prize Foundation, the Private Spaceflight Federation, the Zero Gravity Corporation and many others.

"California's openness to new ideas, technologies and markets has been a catalyst for trend-setters for decades," Spencer reported. "The future of the space tourism industry is limitless and our prediction is that it will continue to be focused in California, where transformational space was born and thrives."

To view the work of the California Space Authority, go to:

http://www.californiaspaceauthority.org/

• VIDEO Coverage of the X Prize Cup
• Complete Coverage of the X Prize Cup
• Top Contender for Lunar Lander Prize Crashes
• Lunar Lander Rocket Flies But Fails In Bid For Prize Dollars
• Challenges Ahead for Spaceport America
• Astronaut Advice for Future Space Tourists