Keeping Space Exploration Spirit Alive : Local Aerospace Firms Must Not Lose Sight of Possibilities Moon Landing Represented

As Orange County grew after World War II, its changing economy provided jobs and fueled a sense of optimism about the future. Perhaps nothing symbolizes more significantly the heady optimism of the post-war time than the role played by local firms in the moon landing. Its 25th anniversary will be celebrated this week.

In Orange County, three corporate divisions took part in the effort. The second-stage rocket was built by North American Rockwell, which later became Rockwell, in Seal Beach. The third-stage rocket was built by McDonnell Douglas in Huntington Beach. And the lunar exploration module engines were tested at TRW’s San Juan Capistrano facility. Engineers and other workers, inspired by a sense of national purpose, willingly put in extra hours on overtime and on weekends without complaint. It was a time when it seemed that all things were possible. As the county tries to climb out of recession and cope with reduced expectations all around, perhaps it is appropriate to use the occasion of the anniversary to ask: How do we rekindle the spirit in fresh ways and channel it in new directions?

In the decades since, there has continued to be considerable growth, but the aerospace industry that fueled the space exploration effort has fallen on hard times. And today, the struggle to keep the space shuttle mission alive is as much a symbol for the present uncertainty as the moon project was for the earlier sense of limitless horizons. As the county plunged into recession, McDonnell Douglas Space Systems Co. has seen its role in the space program dangling by a thread. The number of employees working on the project has been cut in half, and the survival has been on a year-to-year basis.

As the space station got a life in a recent important congressional vote, its chief advocate, Rep. George E. Brown Jr. (D-Colton), noted that the station “represents the expansion of the human spirit and the continuation of the human drive to explore Earth and the universe around it.” That’s a tall order for the controversial space station to meet, and its future remains uncertain. Brown nevertheless put his finger on some exciting quality that inspires all sorts of new technologies down on the ground, whether they be in space-related projects or other fields like biotechnology. Orange County, with its role in the changing space program, and with its place as an international center of business, ought not to lose sight of that historic vision as a driving force in its future.