Space Shuttle Retires and 23,000 Jobs will Disappear

Sadly, NASA is going to have the budget cut for manned space flight and this coincides with the retirement of the current space shuttle program which will end this year 2010. This in and of itself is a shame because NASA has led the way in technology for sending people into space, but it looks as if the private sector may begin to work on space craft capable of sending people into space as well as the European Space Agency. Another consequence to this budget cut will be the loss of 23,000 jobs, yes, 23,000 jobs!
From the article:

Revised projections now show that about 23,000 workers at and around Kennedy Space Center will lose their jobs because of the shuttles' retirement and the new proposal to cancel the development of new rockets and spacecraft.
IN-DEPTH SPECIAL REPORT: Shuttle ShutdownThat sum includes 9,000 "direct" space jobs and -- conservatively speaking -- 14,000 "indirect" jobs at hotels, restaurants, retail stores and others that depend on activity at the space center, said Lisa Rice, Brevard Workforce president.
"Our unemployment rate is going to skyrocket," she warned Thursday during a five-hour Brevard County Commission space workshop. Much conversation centered on the future of human space launches from KSC, and attendees heaped criticism on Obama's strategy.

I do not see the economy turning around to the positive side for many years or maybe ever, so I do not know what will happen to space travel. Since I am a science fiction lover and I dream of space travel, meeting alien life, and traveling the Universe, this seems like a big setback, for a while anyways.
Here is the article about the 23,000 jobs to be lost.

Star Trek First Contact and WW3

As I was writing about the end of the current space shuttle program, some thoughtful commenters were aware that political and financial times may impede any progress in the manned space program and private enterprise may be the next phase in space travel advancement. These thoughts reminded me of the movie Star Trek: First Contact (1996), in which the crew of the Enterprise travels back through time at the point when humans are about to make first contact. As described in the film, Earth had suffered through world war three which managed to wipe out a majority of the Earth´s population and world governments. This was in the year of 2063, according to the movie, the humans were living in encampment-like buildings, it all looked very humble, yet they had superior technological skills and Zefram Cochrane was the character who had the skills and ability to make the first warp spacecraft. He said his reasons were for money, not some noble cause to better humaity. From that point on, first contact is made and thus we have the beginning of the Federation.

The point in the summary of the movie is that society had to reach a point were people were on their own without the direction of government and doing things in a private and capitalistic manner that ends up being good for humans. The few people who remained had to cooperate, think for themselves, and find a way to survive and go on with life without depending on daddy government. When true capitalism is applied, you rise and fall on your own merit, there is no bail-out. I wish we could get to that point without going through all the pain and destruction, but if you listen to economists such as Marc Faber, Jim Rogers, and Max Keiser, you will see that the world is headed for very tough times. They all have videos on YouTube that are worth listening to, and yes we must have hope for a better future, but we must also be realists as well.