KSC families leaving, one at a time

When Brandon and Lisa DeVries move to New Hampshire next month, they will depart the Space Coast just ahead of a massive wave of space industry layoffs.

After 10 years in Brevard, the 34-year-olds will leave behind family and friends, and the footprint that their jobs and lives filled -- an economic void that could remain empty for years and multiply in size if more families leave for jobs elsewhere.

A safety engineer at Kennedy Space Center, Lisa DeVries has landed similar work at a nuclear power plant 1,350 miles away. She starts Oct. 4, three days after her present employer, United Space Alliance, plans to lay off 900 space shuttle workers here.

"The future is so uncertain," said Lisa DeVries, who began job hunting this spring, when word came that the Obama administration favored ending the Constellation program. "Everybody I've talked to said that it was the right move. They said, 'You're really lucky.' "

Up to 8,000 layoffs are expected at KSC when the shuttle program ends next year. No one knows how many families eventually will relocate, but in one unscientific survey by Brevard Workforce of nearly 500 space workers, two-thirds said they were willing to leave the state to find a job.

Leaving the Space Coast ends a dream for the DeVrieses, who met at Space Camp in Huntsville, Ala., when they were 22. Both family cars carry commemorative shuttle license tags, and their home is decorated with dozens of shuttle images. They admit they are space geeks. And they regret that they won't be around to witness the final shuttle launches.

STS-132, launched in May, was the last mission Lisa DeVries oversaw from her place in the firing room.

Another safety engineer will give the "Safety Go" signal for the final two launches, while DeVries monitors safety systems some 40 miles north of Boston at the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant, which generates electricity for 900,000 homes.

"It was a really difficult decision to leave something I've got such a passion for," she said. "However, the potential of losing my job is really, really big.