Last week, spectators from across the country watched with mild incredulity as Newt Gingrich spoke to Floridians about his vision for a permanent lunar colony. Upon hearing this, many of us snickered from our couches at home, but at the Holiday Inn in Cocoa, Florida, where Newt was holding his rally, the message struck home. His statement boldly going where few politicians have gone before lifted many in attendance off of their seats and drove hundreds to cheers.



Cocoa, Florida sits nestled on the storied Space Coast, and the town is really hurting right now. Brevard County, which contains Cocoa and most of the Space Coast, lost an estimated 13,000 jobs with the demise of the space shuttle program last July. Cocoa pool halls, restaurants and bars are now empty, where once they were packed with NASA scientists, engineers and contract workers looking to relax after a hard day's work.



Roughly fifteen miles to the north of Cocoa, Titusville, Florida sits directly across the narrow bay from the Kennedy Space Center, and it's also hurting. The city of 44,510, which residents have proudly dubbed "Space City," sported a 13.8% unemployment rate before the NASA layoffs struck. In addition, many of its businesses depended upon space tourism, which would skyrocket around every NASA launch. With the loss of the space shuttle program, the city is now grounded in a painful economic reality.





Residents of the Space Coast watch a shuttle launch. (AP Photo)



Titusville's website proudly proclaims that the city is the "Gateway to Nature and Space." For the moment, this gateway is closed, but there may hopefully come a day when it will reopen. Perhaps when we start sending settlers to the Moon.





Titusville's story took center stage in a short documentary by Ride5 Films entitled. The film primarily focused on residents' memories of the 30-year space shuttle program. Watching the documentary, you could really feel the pride they took in their connection to NASA and the celestial, and their sense of loss when that connection was severed last July. The film struck a somewhat somber tone and evoked memories of Flint, Michigan after the closure of its General Motors plant."I don't know how to excite kids about growing algae... It's not the same as flying in space like Buck Rodgers," resident Brenda Mulberry, owner of Spaceshirts.com, said in the film.Despite the town's current setback, "Welcome to Titusville" showed that some residents are hopeful. Observed Mark Conklin, "We'll see the next space program begin out here. We have survived Apollo. We have survived the Challenger incident. We spring back surprisingly well."