Posted: Tue, Mar 30, 2004, 6:47 PM ET (2347 GMT)
A study by the FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation concluded that commercial space transportation and enabled industries in the US contributed $95 billion in economic activity in the country in 2002, an increase of over 50 percent from three years earlier. The report, released Tuesday at the National Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, concluded that the industries also provided over 575,000 jobs and $23.5 billion in earnings in the same year. The report is a followup to a similar study released three years ago that concluded that the industries provided $61.3 billion in economic activity and just under 500,000 jobs in 1999. The growth came in industry sectors like satellite services and ground equipment manufacturing, while the actual launch vehicle and satellite manufacturing industries experienced declines from 1999 because of a drop in commercial launch activity in the intervening years. The report also projected the impact of the launch vehicle industry on the US economy in 2010, providing two different scenarios depending on the fraction of the global commercial orbital and suborbital launch markets US companies can capture.

Related Links:

•  FAA report (PDF format)