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MyspaceTucked away on one of Goleta’s lesser-known industrial areas, Alliant Techsystems - an aerospace and defense company better known as ATK - has a spaceworks operation gearing up to create the fanlike solar arrays for NASA’s Orion spacecraft, the crew module for the Moon, and eventually the Mars-based Constellation Project.
On Monday afternoon, October 12, company officials joined by Congresswoman Lois Capps, Goleta Mayor Roger Aceves, Santa Barbara County Second District Supervisor Janet Wolf, and other area dignitaries held a groundbreaking ceremony: The ATK facility on Pine Avenue in Goleta is due for a 25,000 square-foot expansion to accommodate a new laboratory, clean room, and office space for the NASA-related projects. “With the economic downturn, to see a company like ATK expand is great,” said Aceves. “They have a highly educated workforce and employ a lot of graduates from UCSB and Dos Pueblos High School. He added that while the company already has 170 employees in Goleta, that number is likely to increase significantly over the next several years.
Construction on the new facility - to be built next to the existing one, in Goleta’s Old Town Redevelopment Area- should begin within a week. Completion is scheduled for June, 2010. Aceves said that the city wants to facilitate keeping ATK on track to meet its production deadlines, as the company’s technology is an integral part of NASA’s 2019 manned lunar expedition, as well as a tentative plan to send a crew of astronauts to Mars by 2030. “This expansion was the result of a partnership that was formed between ATK, the Towbes Group, and the City to get the project completed in a timely manner so they can continue building equipment that can be used in space,” he said. ATK’s lease agreement with Goleta-based Towbes Group also includes a provision for an extension of Eckwill Street, which will connect Fairview with Pine Avenue.
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ATK at their Promontory, UTAH standing rocket motor test site - successfully validated the "Aries I" rocket booster - which is key to NASA "Constellation" program successes - just few weeks ago! After the cheers died down - ATK passed out ca. 600 "pink slips" not counting their sub-contractors statewide. That brings to more than 800 employees - only ATK's REAL PEOPLE added to the state's unemployment roles in UT, where subminimal wage "benefits amounts" paid are FAR BELOW those in CA! FURTHER, the recent Augustine Commission delivered its NASA-appointed "Human Space Flight Review" interim report to The White House and Headquarters NASA last month! See web site "hsf.nasa.gov" for details! Those appointed members essentially gave NASA manned spaceflight a "NO GO!" under current funding and policy! In Houston, TX: The premier local daily newspaper "The Chronicle" headlined its story of NASA's impacting orbital debris into a lunar crater as" :"Scientists cheer, [but] public yawns"! TOO FEW realize = that WATER ON Earth's MOON was first discovered by Naval Research Lab [NRL] mission "Clementine I" [1994] -- and then NASA successfully lobbied President Bill Clinton to cancel NRL's proposed "Clementine II" - an ambitious, but do-able landing of multiple robotics on some multiple asteroids / meteroids, then return data on mineral findings for future mining! At that time - more than a decade ago - NASA was afraid of being FURTHER 'up-staged' by our US military space capabilities, which continue to be several generations of technology BEYOND[!] the NASA's "best dreams"!
gogosian2001 (anonymous profile)
October 17, 2009 at 6:25 a.m. (Suggest removal)