Houston, the space economy has liftoff
President Logan and the Dallas Fed delegation tour NASA's Johnson Space Center.
Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan’s return to Houston on her 360 Listening Tour orbited around the commercialization of space.
“This ecosystem is not short-term,” one industry executive told President Logan during a roundtable discussion about this new business frontier.
As her tour across the Eleventh Federal Reserve District wraps up another year, President Logan has been able to hear directly from business and community leaders and gain a clearer view of the economy beyond the data. She takes this on-the-ground perspective to Washington as she participates in monetary policy discussions at Federal Open Market Committee meetings.
President Logan and members of her team watch the action in mission control during their visit to NASA.
NASA keeps watch
On the main screen in mission control at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, an astronaut hovered in the International Space Station some 250 miles above the Earth.
President Logan was visiting the center and looked out over an array of screens that at first glance were not dissimilar from the trading floors she called home earlier in her career. But here, the streams of data told a different story: health conditions of space travelers, communication satellite positioning and, off to the side on just a few monitors, modeling that projects the path of almost every object in our planet’s orbit.
It's a “24-7-365-day job,” one official said, monitoring just how much stuff humans have put into space and where it’s all going.
The public is more often fascinated by the kinds of landers and equipment for NASA’s upcoming Artemis moon mission that President Logan inspected earlier in the day. However, the agency’s evolving role as an anchor tenant of the space closer to our home is expected to bring major change for Houston’s businesses that are positioning themselves for opportunities to send more things up.
Texas enters a new space race
The latest transition in Houston’s economy could be seen at the world’s first commercial space port, being built near the NASA Johnson Space Center. The transition has been so rapid that someone showed up to the Axiom Space location trying to return a refrigerator to the Fry’s Electronics store that previously occupied the space.
But the vision the port represents is clear: private companies having unprecedented access to space. President Logan heard from local representatives and economic leaders about what that could mean for a variety of industries, from energy firms aiming to mine the moon to familiar brands that may soon test manufacturing new products in orbit.
A new Texas A&M Space Institute will even be able to house materials for projects that companies want to send up to space.
Plenty of questions remain. President Logan heard about concerns on the momentum of financing for the space economy and whether flight regulations and government funding could keep up.
Still, Texas’ unique economy may have the chance to diversify even further as this new industry aims to tap a workforce driven by NASA alumni from the nearby space center.
Texas is positioning itself to be the leading hub for all things space.
President Logan hears from local business leaders about the opportunities they see in the growing space economy.
Federal, state and local officials have all been working together to promote the commercialization of space.
President Logan convened with Texas space industry leaders at a roundtable hosted by the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership.
