If there’s one thing Colorado aerospace proponents like, it’s talking about where the state ranks in the national aerospace race.
But all statistics, data and wonkery aside, the state had a huge win last week with the launch of the NASA Orion mission, Air Force Space Command commander Gen. John E. Hyten said.
“Look how excited kids were. Look how excited the American people were,” Hyten said. “It was on the front page of every newspaper. It was live on TV. It was exactly what the space business is supposed to do for this nation.”
Hyten’s keynote address Wednesday during the Colorado Space Roundup, at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science, echoed many other comments from the day’s panel discussions and speeches: Space is really, really cool, and much of the future depends on getting people to see that.
But therein lies the issue, said Colorado Space Business Roundtable president Edgar Johansson, who explained that aerospace still has a major perception problem.
“This is an incredible time for space, and yet so many people outside this room never hear that message,” he said. “So we have to tell everybody. We have to scream it from the rooftops that we have a space program and it’s not just Colorado and it’s not just America. It’s the world.”
So, about those statistics: Colorado is currently the No. 3 space economy in the nation, according to the Colorado Space Coalition.
The state has about 400 aerospace-related companies and about 170,000 aerospace-related jobs, the greatest per-capita rate of any state, according to data from the Metro Denver Economic Development Corporation.
However, Colorado wants to be No. 1, and gatherings like the Colorado Space Roundup are one step toward getting there, Johansson said. The annual event brings together the key players in the state’s aerospace economy — or, as Johansson calls them, “competimates” — to discuss how to best move the industry forward.
Central to this effort is the development of an educated, homegrown workforce. However, this is not just the responsibility of the state’s universities, said Brian Sanders, deputy director of the Colorado Space Grant Consortium, a statewide program funded by NASA that gives university students hands-on experience with space programs.
“The challenge that I have to everyone today is to figure out how you can integrate some students, help develop that pipeline, pull those students out of higher education into your companies and perhaps give them some great challenges to hone some of their skills,” he said.
Much of the conversation at Wednesday’s event revolved around boosting commercial space ventures through government-commercial partnerships.
This work — such as the military contracts landed by commercial satellite companies — can benefit both sides, said Kay Sears, president of Intelsat General, a subsidiary of satellite services company Intelsat, which operates an office in Denver.
“For us, we have to innovate. There isn’t any other way for us to stay competitive in our business. Unless we innovate, our competition will pass us up,” Sears said.
On the flip side, she said, the government needs to understand that businesses have to make a profit. Thus, efficiency is key.
“To be competitive, we can’t afford to be delayed, for example,” she said. “So, if they use commercial industry to do what we do well, then the government gets that advantage. They won’t be late, and they won’t be over cost.”
Colorado has generous incentive programs to help lure companies to the state and to encourage existing companies to add jobs. The idea is that they then become more competitive.
Lockheed Martin Space Systems, which consolidated its commercial satellite division to Colorado this year, pledged to create as many as 500 new high-paying aerospace jobs in Colorado over eight years in exchange for up to $15.5 million in state tax incentives.
The tax credits will allow the company to pass along savings and more competitively bid for contracts.
It’s all a step in the right direction, said Tory Bruno, CEO of Centennial-based United Launch Alliance.
“There are still tremendous challenges facing the space industry,” Bruno said. “While space is the pathway to our human destiny, it is also key to our safety and security here at home. And these challenges are daunting to a number of folks in this community.
“I have every confidence that our industry will meet that challenge and do what our country has asked of us.”
Laura Keeney: 303-954-1337, lkeeney@denverpost.com or twitter.com/LauraKeeney
