The Florida state legislature is set to convene a special session this week, primarily to take on state Medicaid reform. However, some legislators hope to squeeze some other issues on the agenda, including incentives for the state’s space industry. The proposal, by Rep. Bob Allen, a Republican from the Space Coast region of the state, would provide up to $250 million in incentives to lure whoever wins the CEV development contract from NASA to establish an assembly facility in the state. Florida Today endorsed the proposal in an editorial last week: “The stakes are enormous, considering Florida gained $3.3 billion in economic impact from NASA in 2004 — a figure certain to plummet as NASA restructures unless state officials show leadership and vision.” Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings said she hoped the legislature would only consider those issues that can’t wait until the next regular session in March; the Tallahassee Democrat said that the space industry incentives proposal is among those topics with “less momentum” than some other pressing issues.
This Apollo Capsule on Steroids thing — the CEV — it will not be able to land at Kennedy. It will always have to land at Edwards, or some other West Coast location. Why? Because the Service Module, or whatever they call it, will fall to Earth without completely disintegrating. ( Dis- integrating, geddit? ) Therefore the SM has to land in the ocean, therefore Apollo on Steroids (TM) has to land on the West Coast.
Therefore, one could argue that Palmdale is a good place to put the CEV factory. How many of ‘em are they going to build, btw?
Article I just read in Space News said, “Northrup Grumman officials estimate the winning team will need to construct three to five CEVs in a year with different functionalities depending on how frequently NASA wants to fly.” It’s not clear what, if anything, this assumes about reusability.
— Donald
The degree of reusability is still being traded. I’m pretty sure that NASA hasn’t made a decision on that yet, or if they have, it’s not reflected in the draft CFI or SRD that just came out.