Bad news for the Northern Utah jobs picture and the Utah economy in general, folks, as both the Standard-Examiner and Salt Lake Tribune report that Utah-based aerospace firm "Alliant Techsystems’ plan to use its Liberty rocket to eventually transport astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station was left unfunded on the launch pad Friday."
Here's the lead from this morning's Standard-Examiner front page:
OGDEN — ATK Space Systems in Box Elder County was bypassed Friday in its bid to win part of nearly $1.2 billion from NASA to develop a new commercial space launch system to carry American astronauts into space.
The decision leaves the future of hundreds of jobs in Box Elder County in doubt.
ATK already laid off more than 2,000 employees as the space shuttle program wound down. It hoped to avoid further layoffs by building more solid-rocket motors for its proposed manned launch system, called Liberty.Read the full S-E and Trib stories here:
Needless to say, Utah 1st Congressional District Representative-for-life Rob Bishop R-UT is practically apoplectic about this development:
U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, in whose congressional district ATK is located, said he and the rest of Utah’s congressional delegation will not take the decision lying down.The real question... what will Bishop and the rest of Utah's federal congressional delegation be able to do about it? Not much, we'll suggest.
Added bonus question: As frequent and loud Obama critics, what exactly did Bishop and the rest of Utah's congressional delegation expect? Seems obvious to us at first blush that Utah will be paying the foreseeable and probable price for its crackpot right-wing political extremism.
But what do our Gentle Readers have to say about all this?
