"I have been told by folks who work at senior levels directly at USA that they have been told they can?t go after any new [contracts] ? that they are basically standing down," one industry source told Space News. "Does that mean Boeing and Lockheed plan to totally dismantle the company? I can?t go that far, but if you are not allowed to go after any new work, that certainly says something."
What will be the fallout from USA?s demise?
Separate Ways
The two parent companies, which are competitors for NASA work, have never enjoyed being connected at the hip through USA. The collaboration came about as a result of the mass consolidation of the 80s and 90s, when defense and aerospace budgets couldn?t support the litany of companies that had come out of the go-go Apollo era: Rockwell International (formerly North American Aviation), McDonnell Douglas, Boeing, Lockheed, TRW, and Grumman, just to name a handful. By the mid-90s, Rockwell was NASA?s prime contractor on the space shuttle, but it was managing many other contracts, including with Lockheed Martin for tank production. The latter was also supporting NASA?s Kennedy Space Center on Shuttle launch processing. NASA demanded that Rockwell and Lockheed Martin consolidate their contracts to reduce overheard. The shotgun marriage created USA. Later, when Boeing bought out Rockwell, it and Lockheed Martin became partners.
That era now appears to be coming to a close. Apparently, Boeing and Lockheed have now decided that the small existing support work for the ISS doesn?t justify the continued existence of the USA venture. This won?t completely disentangle the companies from each other?they remain joint owners of the United Launch Alliance (ULA), which supplies (Lockheed Martin) Atlas and (Boeing) Delta flights to the Air Force, NASA, and any potential commercial payloads. But it will at least free the two companies to competitively pursue other NASA space transportation work?something that, at least in theory, should be beneficial to the taxpayer.
For instance, NASA is creating a new contract for space transportation support?it needs private firms to ground systems development and modification that will be the bridge between the end of the space shuttle work and the first flight of the planned heavy-lift Space Launch System (several years from now). Boeing wants to compete for it outright, and not share it with Lockheed Martin through USA. Presumably, Lockheed Martin feels the same way.
Jobs
A dirty little not-so-secret of the aerospace industry is that, in a sense, it employs well-educated migrant workers. Some people manage to spend an entire career at a single company, but many, perhaps most, tend to follow the big contracts. If the company they?re working for loses a bid, they often switch badges and go to work for the winner. But in lean times, such as the period of the early 1970s when Apollo ended and the Vietnam War sapped space budgets, there often is no new program to jump to. The demise of USA would suggest that we?re entering another such era.
So what will happen to the USA refugees? In more flush times, they might move to other companies and space and defense contracts, but today is similar to the early seventies, with the recent announcement of big upcoming cuts in defense. Although USA started a bonus program in 2008 that was intended to make sure employees with critical space shuttle experience stayed on through the final flights, many workers have already been laid off as the program wound down, and many more may be. But some will presumably have opportunities to be re-badged at one of their parent companies, depending on their skills and experience. In many cases, it will require a move, and the high-tech space worker migration will continue.
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