That, in turn, could help reverse a worrisome "brain drain" of young adults, who are deciding to make their careers elsewhere, said engineering executive James R. Thomas Jr., president of the Greater Salisbury Committee. About one-third of the work force at Wallops, primarily higher-end earners, goes home each night to nearby Maryland, which offers more amenities than rural Virginia.
The immediate future of the spaceport hinges on Orbital's ability to clear a series of hurdles required to keep government money flowing for the space-station supply missions. The company has encountered delays in developing its Taurus II rocket, and the date of an initial test flight from Wallops has slipped by three months, from December 2010 to March 2011.
A June 16 report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, gave a guarded assessment of the work by NASA's commercial partners (another private company, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., based at Cape Canaveral, will also fly cargo missions). An earlier GAO report had expressed concern that the new cargo ships would not be ready in time to supply food, spare parts, water and scientific materials to the space station.
Orbital "faces challenges completing development in time" for its test flight, with "little margin" for overcoming unexpected snags, the GAO concluded. If the private companies miss their tight schedules, NASA's space station mission would have to be scaled back, the report added.
"To be perfectly candid, this is rocket science. It is hard," said Barry Beneski, an Orbital spokesman. "We're not trying to sugar-coat that."
Indeed, the commercial space business remains a high-risk industry with an uncertain future. Less than two weeks ago, Sea Launch Co., which launches rockets for commercial satellite companies from a floating platform on the equator, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
MARS is building its launch pad for the space station missions on the exact spot where the spaceport's first commercial rocket customer flopped in 1995. Less than a minute into its flight, the Conestoga rocket malfunctioned, ending a $75 million private venture.
Looking ahead, spaceport officials would like to expand their operations into human space flight, capturing business from private companies like Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic, which wants to send wealthy travelers on suborbital trips from sites in California and New Mexico.
Taking humans into orbit from Wallops, such as crew missions to the space station, isn't in the cards at the moment, though Congress has authorized money for a commercial demonstration project.
"Not soon," said Strain, Goddard's director. "To duplicate here all the resources that Kennedy has probably would not be the best use of taxpayer money."
But, he added, "Never is a long time."
