NASA's funds quickly running out

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER, Fla. — NASA’s shuttle program has ended and very soon, so will the funds to maintain the facilities that supported the space program.

That's left NASA with a long list of facilities from launch complexes to a parachute processing facility available for lease to private companies.

“If we don't find a user and the (fiscal) cliff comes and the program no longer pays for it, NASA has no money for it. It becomes abandoned and eventually gets on our demolition list,” said Joyce Riquelme, director of Planning and Development for NASA.

Things haven't moved as quickly as Riquelme would have liked, but she’s hopeful some still  "undisclosed"  businesses may be expressing something more than interest in the very near future.

“There's a lot if uncertainty in the commercial space industry,” she said.

But already, Space Florida is making use of the Orbiter Processing Facility-Three and the Processing Control Center as it assists in the development of the Boeing CST-100, a space transportation system that could one day ferry astronauts to the International Space Station.

WFTV