Space News by Debra Werner — February 17, 2022
With California losing its luster as the aerospace industry’s golden state, a coast-to-coast competition for space companies is heating upCities, counties and states offer grants, tax incentives, land, facilities and workforce training to convince space companies to move.
“California will still and forever remain the startup capital of the world just because of the venture capital ecosystem,” said Sean Casey, former Silicon Valley Space Center managing director and co-founder of the New York Space Alliance. “You’ll always pull them in based on Silicon Valley, but can you hold onto them?”
In many cases, the answer is no. Companies leave California to open offices and production facilities in states with plentiful engineering talent, proximity to government customers and a lower cost of living.
Like Alabama, Colorado, Florida, New Mexico, Texas and Virginia, California benefits from its extensive U.S. government space infrastructure and the billions of dollars in federal funds that flow into government space programs. Unlike the other states, California has no state commission supporting the sector.
“California’s aerospace industry boasts a gross domestic product exceeding that of the state’s film and television and agricultural industries combined, but does not have a state commission like other major industries in the state,” said California Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi, chairman of the Select Committee on Aerospace.
More:
https://spacenews.com/state-fight-a-coast-to-coast-battle-to-bring-home-the-space-jobs/
