Opportunities, and ironies, were in abundance Thursday at a matchmaking event Connecticut organized for its small manufacturers to gain entree to NASA, SpaceX and the billions of dollars related to America’s return to the moon.
NASA has the budget for the ultimate government business trip, a flight for four around the moon next year. But it only could manage airfare to Hartford for two of the five representatives originally slated to visit for networking with potential vendors in the state’s “Aerospace Alley.”
“We certainly were looking to plan to be there today. And of course, we’re running into some situations with travel,” said David E. Brock, manager of the vendor Mentor-Protégé Program at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center. “But I’m just glad that we were able to accommodate, you know, making it a hybrid event.”
Those “situations” involve broad restrictions on travel and credit-card spending as part of the cost-cutting initiative overseen by Elon Musk, the billionaire government volunteer whose day job includes overseeing SpaceX, the recipient of more than $20 billion in federal contracts, primarily from NASA and the Pentagon.
Brock addressed the audience via video conferencing, as did two others whose expertise is walking potential vendors through the machinations of doing business with NASA directly or by subcontracting with prime contractors, such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin.
Forty-four Connecticut companies already are working on the Artemis program, the ambitious successor to the Apollo program that landed 12 Americans on the moon in six missions, beginning with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin in July 1969. The last was 52 years ago, in December 1972.
Connecticut companies worked on Apollo, contributing everything from space suits to the parachutes that floated the capsules to safety.
Gov. Ned Lamont and the state’s chief manufacturing officer, Paul Lavoie, welcomed the NASA officials and prime contractors to a packed auditorium at the University of Hartford, where one of the most popular majors is the aerospace engineering program launched in 2021.
“We want to be part of Team NASA and everything. That means we’re doing everything we can in terms of research and training and manufacturing,” Lamont said.
The matchmaking session was the first with NASA but not the first in the aerospace industry. The state sponsored a similar meeting last year with Airbus, the manufacturer of commercial airliners.
Lavoie said his job is unique: No other state has a chief manufacturing officer in the executive branch. Connecticut has shown some results with its investments and support for manufacturing growth.
“In February of 2022, our manufacturing GDP was 10% of the state’s GDP. Today, we stand at 12.6%, and we still are growing at about a 5% clip each year, which is a significant contributor to Connecticut’s growth and Connecticut’s economy,” Lavoie said.
The state has increased funding of its Manufacturing Innovation Fund, which leverages investment in manufacturing upgrades with first time grants of 33% of equipment costs and 25% for subsequent purchasers. It has been a boon for the small manufacturing shops that subcontract with Pratt & Whitney, Sikorsky, Electric Boat and other aerospace and defense contractors.
Attendees didn’t seem to mind that some of the NASA reps appeared virtually, remotely projecting slides that outlined contracting opportunities, providing personal emails of the right people to contact and tips about the days when vendors could visit with small business specialists.
Paul Gulbin, a business development executive who represents Horberg Industries in Bridgeport, scrawled notes and periodically photographed the projected slides. He said he gathered more intel and contact info in two hours than otherwise would be possible in days.
Horberg employs about 15 people producing precision fasteners and dowel pins for aerospace, medical and other uses that require precise and durable parts, he said. The company’s parts have been used in aircraft going back to the early days of flight, he said.
“If it flies, it probably has dowel pins,” Gulbin said.
He took copious notes when John Koelling, the director of aeronautics research at NASA’s Langley research center, briefed the audience on GRX-810, a super-strong new alloy that can survive extreme temperatures produced by aircraft and rocket engines. Koelling was one of the two NASA officials who attended in person.
Showing photos of airliner prototypes, Koelling said he believes the aerospace industry is about to make a technical jump forward not seen since the early days of space and commercial airline travel. He talked about the wildly productive period from 1958 to 1970, when modern air travel was established.
“We saw the introduction or the first flight of the [Boeing] 707, 727, 737, 747, DC-9, DC-10, L-1011 in 12 years,” he said. “That was for the birth of the modern aviation industry as we know it today, and I believe that we’re on the cusp of another one of those very, very soon.”
Gulbin said he attended the meeting the Lamont administration arranged with Airbus and found it invaluable.
“We changed our whole way of looking at the supply chain ecosystem after the Airbus meeting,” Gulbin said.
Brock told the audience to think of whether they are large enough to seek direct contracts with NASA or subcontracts with prime contractors.
“If you’re looking at opportunities at NASA, in particular here at Marshall, your opportunities can come one or two ways, but I will tell you that in the manufacturing world, in the R&D world, it is primarily going to be through the subcontracting programs with these large companies,” Brock said.
As he spoke, a slide showed that nearly $4.4 billion in contracts had been awarded directly to small businesses. The biggest single contract for a prime contractor was the $622.7 million SpaceX’s work on the human landing system that eventually will take astronauts to the surface of the moon.
“This is not the end today,” Brock said. “Today is the beginning, and we want to start a collaborative process for this group.”
This story was originally published by the Connecticut Mirror.
