KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — Sobering new NASA estimates that cancellation of the space shuttle in 2010 could cost up to 9,000 aerospace contractor jobs nationwide — 6,400 of them here at KSC — are refocusing Congressional pressure on the White House for additional funds to accelerate development of the Ares/Orion shuttle replacement vehicles.

The new job loss estimates are part of an initial Workforce Transition Study that also shows that as bad as things are, NASA and its contractors — especially United Space Alliance, which ties Boeing and Lockheed Martin for shuttle processing — really are placing a maximum effort on transitioning the workforce toward the new skills mix necessary for Ares/Orion operations.

“The Bush Administration’s space plan is woefully inadequate and unacceptable,” says Rep. Dave Weldon who represents the KSC area in Congress.

“The administration’s current plan is to cede the ‘ultimate high ground’ to hostile nations,” Weldon says. “The Chinese and Russians are celebrating today, while many [in the KSC area] are only now realizing the magnitude of the absurdity of the current strategy imposed by the administration.”

“My colleagues in the Senate haven’t seemed to grasp the scope of this debacle and the urgency with which we must act.” says Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.). Competition with China is an increased factor in assessing the impact of such a major U.S. aerospace job loss, members of Congress believe.

Extra funding in fiscal 2010-11 could knock two years off a now projected five-year gap to 2015 when the first manned Ares/Orion can fly to the International Space Station. But realists say “don’t hold your breath” for extra White House money — from either the Bush Administration or the next one, whether it be an Obama, Clinton or McCain White House.

Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) are generally supportive of manned space flight, but Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has expressed a much stronger preference for a space program based on robotic systems.

And Clinton, although supportive, has been coy on whether she would support a return to the moon plan by 2020, as with the current Bush administration’s “vision”.

It is a huge transition and retraining effort that spans the country and may well be the largest ever done for any aerospace project, managers believe.

“Critical skills retention is ‘challenge No. 1’” says Mike Leinbach, shuttle launch director at Kennedy. “We need to retain critical people and make sure they are motivated.”