A Puget Sound Newspaper reporter had an interesting take on Aerospace jobs flowing to Florida. The problem I have with the article. Well outside of the fact he suggests the new "Starliner" could be used for deep space exploration (the heat shield can't handle it) it makes the case that since Bezos company Blue Orion is setting up In Florida is stealing jobs from Kent Washington. The reality is Kent never truly had a space industry, they had a Boeing Division that drove the Boeing Space groups in California crazy with their solutions to problems we didn't have. And according to this article the opening of the CST-100/ Strainer assembly facility at Florida is another loss for Kent. But CST-100 was being designed at Houston, not Kent. And the move to Florida (from Houston) had been in the works for three years. And yes, Boeing built the first stage of the Saturn, in Louisiana.
Boeing Washington never wanted a Space Division and thus there was nothing at Kent to loose to Florida. In the same way the devastation of the Boeing Space divisions in California: from the selling of Rocketdyne, to the dumping of Delta onto ULA, to the final demise of Shuttle, they have effectively put Boeing out of the Space business. For me, one of the many Ex-Boeing engineers its just a matter of time before Boeing sells CST-100/Starliner to Lockheed or Northrup and goes back to just making commercial airliners. What Boeing Washington just wants to do.
Boeing Washington never wanted a Space Division and thus there was nothing at Kent to loose to Florida. In the same way the devastation of the Boeing Space divisions in California: from the selling of Rocketdyne, to the dumping of Delta onto ULA, to the final demise of Shuttle, they have effectively put Boeing out of the Space business. For me, one of the many Ex-Boeing engineers its just a matter of time before Boeing sells CST-100/Starliner to Lockheed or Northrup and goes back to just making commercial airliners. What Boeing Washington just wants to do.