Now the Space Coast, the region that earned its income and identity from NASA - the area code is 321, the blastoff countdown, while schools and roads are named for astronauts - has fallen on hard times. Its economic angst has played a featured role in the Florida Republican primary for president, centered on the battle between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, with the outcome to be decided Tuesday.
Brevard County, which contains most of the Space Coast, lost an estimated 13,000 jobs with the shutdown last summer of the space-shuttle program. Although local leaders are pushing ecotourism (a birding festival is under way here) and cruise ships dock at the port on Cape Canaveral, unemployment stands at 10.8 percent, compared with 9.9 percent statewide and 8.5 percent nationally.
People are walking away from their mortgages, housing prices have continued to drop, and storefronts are shuttered along the coastal highway Route 1 and Florida Highway 3, the main approach to the employees' gate of the Kennedy Space Center.
"I'm watching my business slowly dissipate down to nothing, working more hours for less," said Stephen Gaughran, who has owned Sparky's Family Billiards, a pool hall in downtown Titusville, for 22 years.
"I'm at the bottom of the fishbowl," he said Sunday. "I survive on people's disposable income, and these days more of their 'disposable' income is going into the gas tank to get to and from work."
Sparky's used to fill every night with NASA employees, but on Saturday only one of the 13 tables was in use; the previous Saturday, Gaughran said, no customers appeared.
