The Plain Dealer - Glenn Wins Big Space Project

The Plain Dealer - Glenn Wins Big Space Project

Money, many jobs expected to follow

The Plain Dealer
Becky Gaylord

NASA Glenn Research Center got liftoff Friday, winning vital, lucrative space work worth, over the project's life, at least $2 billion and possibly hundreds of jobs.

Glenn staff will manage the work on a major element of the Crew Exploration Vehicle, the rocket replacing the space shuttle, which NASA officials want in space by 2012.

A formal agreement that spells out the center's role on the service module of the Crew Exploration Vehicle was signed recently by NASA officials in Washington, at Glenn and at the main project office within Johnson Space Center in Houston.

"This is great news for morale at NASA Glenn, stabilizes the future of the center, and shows that Ohio will continue to be a major player in NASA's vision for space exploration for years to come," Sen. Mike DeWine said in a statement Friday. The senator from Ohio had worked aggressively the past year to bring the service module work to Glenn, which had been hobbled by staff and program cuts.

The victory is a coup for the center, whose director, Woodrow Whitlow, has been at the helm just five months. Other NASA centers also fought to manage the service module, a role that will include crucial control over the project's budget as well as personnel and contracting.

Many decisions related to the enormous Crew Exploration Vehicle contract are yet to be made. Glenn's role in managing the service module element of it, however, is definite, sources say.

And, in addition to the service module project, Glenn is expected to win additional work early next month. NASA officials say the agency plans to make a formal announcement about an array of projects then.

These lifelines for Glenn come at a crucial time: Without the projects, grave doubts would have hung over the future of the center, whose economic output contributes more than $1 billion to Northeast Ohio.

Several times in the past decade, local civic and political leaders fought to keep it open.

With the agreement in place, work on the design, development and testing of the service module will begin in earnest.

The module will provide communications, power and propulsion for the astronauts on missions to the International Space Station, the moon, and eventually Mars.

It remains unclear how many jobs linked to the work the region will get, at least immediately. DeWine said the project will bring "a significant number of jobs to the Cleveland area."

These aren't just any jobs.

NASA's employees are among the highest educated - and paid - in the region. Four in 10 of its 1,700 employees have advanced degrees, data from Cleveland State University shows. Glenn workers make an average of $83,000 a year and pay millions annually in local and state government taxes.

Earlier this month, Whitlow announced a reorganization at Glenn that would create a separate division at the center to oversee and fight for space work.

Whitlow has yet to name someone to head the new division. But moving to set it up was essential to Glenn's ability to win the service module work, NASA observers say.

In recent years, Glenn's management had not aggressively pursued roles in exploration, even while the agency began focusing almost exclusively on space missions and work supporting them, at President Bush's behest.

Before, decades ago, Glenn had held major space roles, including the Centaur rocket, an upper-stage launch vehicle. But the center's role with space work had faded in prominence. Its budget has tumbled, and its staff levels have dropped, too.

Still, though scores of talented engineers and scientists departed, Glenn retained impressive technical capabilities, according to two internal NASA reports commissioned to size up the center's ability to handle a major space project.

The first report started circulating in August 2005, the same month DeWine and his staff flew to Cleveland to meet with Glenn management to discuss strategies for securing the service module contract.

Sen. George Voinovich and Reps. Steve LaTourette and Dennis Kucinich and the business group the Greater Cleveland Partnership also pressed urgently for Glenn to win management of the work.

In February, when the second, more comprehensive NASA report also concluded that Glenn had the capability to manage a major space project, discussions that the center would get it heated up, sources say.

The Plain Dealer obtained both reports.

The agency has yet to take many steps to finalize details on the Crew Exploration Vehicle contact, which will be managed by a main project office in Houston.

"We have not defined exactly what all the work is, nor where it will all be done," said Glenn's Deputy Director Richard Christiansen.

Nonetheless, he added about Glenn's role with the service module, "This is a really big deal."