The stopping of U.S. space shuttle program is the conclusion of the line for Tom Brown and other workers like him at the Kennedy Space Center in central Florida. He will be joining a large group of unemployed people.

“It’s kind of scary,” said Brown, a 60-year-old contractor and structural steel painter who was working on the shuttle program since 26 years.

Brown lives in Titusville, a town on the Indian River west of Merritt Island and the Kennedy Space Center. “Space Coast” located in the central Florida, has relied upon the space program controlled by man for its economy living for last 50 years.

The area derived pleasure from its close alliance with space program. This alliance was marked when it clashed and defeated suburban Chicago for rights to the style of liftoff 3-2-1 area code, while it was ready for the seize more than 10 years back.

However, with the passage of time, owner of Sparky’s pool hall in downtown Titusville, told that residents were deprived of money recently in such a way that he counted the cars passing by on the highway U.S. 1 just outside his store front.

“I have been in business here 22 years and this is the worst I’ve seen it,” said Gaughran, whose clients comprise of space center contractors coming there after work.

“I survive on people’s disposable income and I can tell you, right now they don’t have any,” said Gaughran, who forecasted that Titusville will look like a “ghost town”.

He talked about the fact that Brown one of his daily clients is one of the many 3200 shuttle contractors who are sure to be fired on July 22.

The manpower of space shuttle was 18000 in the 90s when spaceship fleet of NASA was working on the previous incomplete missions halted after the Challenger accident of 1986.

By August end just 1000 workers will be there on the shuttle program payroll.

Shuttle veteran Alice Whitsel, 55 was a contractor with NASA for 32 years, expects to be fired latest by March next year. She lives in a double-wide trailer in Titusville and told her lost of job in July was cancelled due to her seniority. She is saving equal to $30 per hour salary as much as she could.

“Fix it if it’s broke,” said Whitsel, speaking the same advice she had heard recently.

“If you can’t afford it, you don’t need it,” she added. “If it’s torn, wear it out.”

The job crisis at the Kennedy Space Center comes because Florida was badly hit by the U.S. housing and mortgage foreclosure crisis, continues to suffer from shaking economy and large scale unemployment.

“Space Rust Belt”

Sean Snaith, economist of Central Florida told that he was thinking that Titusville and other towns of the area will expand economically and will stay away from becoming part of “some sort of celestial rust belt.”

But he accredited that the space center layoffs and the final step of shuttle launches which were an important tourist spot in central Florida will affect the economy.

“It’s a tough blow and the transition is going to be very difficult,” Snaith said.

“This place is going to be Flint, Michigan,” a NASA contractor told, indicating the northwest city of Detroit which is affected by the downfall of the U.S. auto industry. It gave this information on the condition of anonymity.

“I’m going to survive on what severance package they give me,” said Brown, after his pool game at Sparky’s to talk about the dismal condition post shuttle situation.

He indicated a week’s payout he was to get for every 25 years he was officially employed at Kennedy Space Center.

Brown’s wife is disabled and her daughter’s husband was recently blinded, told that going away from Titusville was not something real.

He told that his house is sold and he has got the payment but opined that it would get very little from a market full with closures and sales by previous layoffs from the from the shuttle program workforce.

“I can’t leave, I can’t sell and I can’t find a job,” Brown said. “I don’t know what to do.”