NASA Glenn’s impact on area is tremendous

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration John H. Glenn Research Center will have a major role in sending astronauts back to the moon, and the space agency’s economic impact on Northeast Ohio is one that can’t go unnoticed. According to NASA, the Glenn Research Center’s economic impact in Ohio exceeds an incredible $1.4 billion a year.

But before discussing the economics, what the Glenn Research Center is doing to prepare the world for another jaunt to the moon also is extraordinary.

The Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field in Cleveland and the Plum Brook Station in Sandusky will house and test pieces of the newest vessel that will take a man and woman to the moon in the next five years.

Testing should start within the next month at the Plum Brook Station, a remote test facility for the Glenn Research Center.

As the Plum Brook Station prepares for its thermal vacuum, electro-magnetic interference and acoustic testing of the Orion vessel’s crew capsule and service module for the Artemis 1 project, government and NASA officials toured the facilities Aug. 21 for an inside look at the station’s aeronautical and space exploration initiatives.

Janet Kavandi, director of the Glenn Research Center, said that once testing is completed, the portions of the Orion vessel will return to the Kennedy Space Center in Brevard County, Fla., where it will launch in 2021.

Jim Bridenstine, NASA administrator, was in attendance and said the United States of America is returning to the moon, but in a way that’s never been done before.

Unlike the Apollo missions of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Bridenstine declared the U.S. is going to the moon and plans to stay there.

Bridenstine said the mission largely is to utilize resources on the moon, like water and ice, to live and work there for longer periods of time.

The moon is 238,900 miles from the Earth.

Bridenstine said the moon is the proven ground, but Mars is where NASA is headed.

He vows that one day, an American astronaut eventually will travel to the red planet and place an American flag on the surface.

Ohio Sen. Rob Portman and Ninth Congressional District Rep. Marcy Kaptur saw up close the NASA Electric Aircraft Testbed and Hypersonic Test Facility.

Many of these facilities, such as the Mechanical Vibration facility — the loudest and second biggest of its kind in the world — are unique to Ohio.

Portman said he was impressed with what they saw.

Kaptur noted that Ohio has played a major role in the Artemis 1 project’s success.

The test facilities at the Glenn Research Center and Plum Brook Station can’t be found anywhere else on the face of the earth.

And the Plum Brook Station is the only place in the world where an upper-stage rocket can be fired in a vacuum, and the only place in the universe that can test a full-sized spacecraft for all the conditions or launch and flight in one facility.

In addition, the Plum Brook Station was used to test Mars rovers, parts of the Orion spacecraft and large commercial hardware for Boeing and SpaceX.

Plum Brook Station also is working on hybrid-electric propulsion systems for commercial planes that will go airborne by General Electric Aviation in 2021.

But what’s more impressive to this region is the economic impact.

According to an economic impact study by Cleveland State University’s Center for Economic Development, the Glenn Research Center generates more than $700 million annually in economic activity and creates over 7,000 jobs.

The study continues that NASA Glenn also generates nearly $500 million in labor income and more than $125 million in tax revenue per year.

As for the Plum Brook Station itself, which reopened in 1987, thousands of jobs are both directly and indirectly involved in all of its initiatives, whether private sector, federally funded or contracted.

A highly skilled workforce of engineers, technicians and administrative and support personnel comprise the Plum Brook Station team.

The Artemis 1 project will utilize 124 Ohio suppliers. That means that more than 100 Ohio companies and their employees can say they are going to be a part of NASA returning to the moon, and possibly to Mars and beyond.

This is quite impressive for Northeast Ohio, astronomically and economically.