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MyspaceOver the years, the 95,000 acres of rolling, windswept coastal hills north of Point Conception and south of Santa Maria have been largely uninhabited-for the past 50 serving as home to Vandenberg Air Force Base. As the focal point of the United States Air Force space program, the base has seen hundreds of launches - both military and civilian - and been a major part of the region’s thriving high-tech industry.
The Lompoc-based California Space Authority-a nonprofit corporation dedicated to the advancement of space-related enterprises-has been working with base officials to lay the groundwork for the California Space Center, an educational facility and business park aimed at promoting the space industry. The CSA has earmarked for the purpose 71 acres on Vandenberg Air Force Base property, where a mobile home park for base personnel used to be. “We were interested in the site because it gives a wonderful view of all the launches,” said CSA Deputy Director Janice Dunn, who is heading up the space center project.
Sporting a price tag of $220 million, construction of the Space Center is to be in three phases and completed in 2018. A lease has not yet been signed; Dunn expects a 50-year USAF enhanced-use lease to be finalized by June, 2010.
The first phase should be complete by 2012, and will include a visitors’ center, classrooms for school children, and the business park, which Dunn said has no tenants lined up yet. “There are two reasons for this park,” said Dunn, “to inspire students to study STEM-or science, technology, engineering, and math-and to educate the general public about space.” An IMAX theater, rocket garden, and USAF history heritage center are planned for the second phase, which CSA aims to finish by 2016. The final phase calls for a conference center with capacity for about 2,000 people, and an adult education facility.
Initially, the curriculum will be aimed at fifth graders who are studying the solar system in school, Dunn said, as well as at high school students taking more advanced astronomy classes. However, classes will be available for schoolchildren of all ages. “The goal is lifelong learning,” she added, referring to CSA’s plans to eventually incorporate adult education into the list of academic offerings.
The new space center is to be funded largely by loans, state and federal grants, and charitable contributions. San Luis Obispo-based Productive Impact, LLC-the consulting firm CSA hired to study the project’s costs and economic impacts-indicated the latter would amount to approximately $115 million over the next 10 years. CSA has already received a $3.1 million federal grant for site preparation, a $150,000 state grant to pay for assembling the project’s master plan, and, said Dunn, a $1 million line of credit at Santa Barbara Bank & Trust. In addition to grants and contributions, Dun added, “We intend to use revenues from the business park to fund construction.”
The center will become a regional economic engine, said Dunn, as well as an avenue for technology education and commerce. Productive Impact performed an economic impact study projecting that the center’s construction alone will employ 1,713 people. Space Center employee spending, and vendors for employees and visitors will induce another 12,081 jobs, according to the study. During the first 10 years, the project’s estimated economic impact will be $2.73 billion, and the center will generate $235 million in taxes during that time, the study estimated. A master architect has not yet been selected, but Dunn said four firms-including Santa Maria-based Westberg + White, Inc.-are finalists in the selection process.
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A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS, please!
When I worked at "The Base", there was a "NASA Challenger Education Center" located - within base housing, outside the main gate - at about the site indicated.
It has been there since the mid- to late 1970s -- and with its proximity to public education outside the main gate @ The Base that location served well!
Great for school outings and out-of-classroom visits then & now.
Is this the same site or nearly its location for the newly expanded & developing space activities center?
Last I checked the web site of "The CA Space Authority [CSA]", their main founding offices were - and I believe still are - adjoining the Santa Maria Regional Airport at 3201 Airpark Drive - upstairs on the second floor in Suite 204.
Has the CSA opened a new Lompoc office? If so, that would be logical - for reasons cited in the next paragraphs..
There are still a number of commercial space industry firms located in Vandenberg Village -- South of the main gate, just off Highway One, before reaching the city limits of Lompoc.
It was from Vandenberg Village that a support staff assisted then-Member of Congress ANDREA SEASTRAND in lobbying legislators in both Washington, DC and at Sacramento for her noteworthy & pioneering "Highway to Space" federal legislation - which has clearly established CA as THE Leader in US commercial space activites - then and now.
Those Vandenberg Village space firms are still working with other commercial space activities around the U.S. - as a breath-taking number of commercial "space ports" are being licensed by the FAA for operations - including the first inland space operations at the Mojave Air and Spaceport (at the East Kern Airport District), as well as with Bigelow Aerospace in North Las Vegas, NV - the latter currenlty operating two near Earth-orbiting prototypes "Genesis I" and "Genesis II" for an anticipated launch in 2010 - from Russia - of the "Sundancer" space multi-module inflatable technology human habitat technology, which NASA had rejected decades ago - but has suddenly taken renewed interest for lunar or Martian habitat for humans.
Vandenberg, itself, is licensed as a commercial spaceport near the Space Launch Complex Six on the South Base. The first commercial vehicle launched from there was decades ago by the Lockheed LLV-1 / "Gemstar" payload - just prior to the First Commercial Space Conference held at the Santa Maria Inn, just a few weeks later.
Additional CSA offices also have been opened, most recently at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View - site of many well-funded high-tech "life in outer space" & exo-planetary programs near Silicon Valley industrial firms.
gogosian2001 (anonymous profile)
November 30, 2009 at 2:25 a.m. (Suggest removal)