Friday's scheduled launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavor marks the penultimate end of an era, and continued uncertainty over what's to follow.

For Florida's Space Coast, the phase-out of the 30-year shuttle program means the beginning of the loss of some 9,000 NASA-related jobs. President Barack Obama's attendance at the launch will be bittersweet, since his administration's space policies have triggered the drawdown of the region's employment.

With the demise of the shuttle program, NASA's astronaut corps will shrink, space ventures will be increasingly privatized, and the United States will depend on Russian rockets to ferry scientists to the International Space Station.

“It will be bittersweet to watch as Endeavor makes its final launch after just 25 missions," said U.S. Rep. Bill Posey, whose district encompasses part of the Kennedy Space Center.

Space Florida is working to stay in the game by recruiting commercial launch companies to locate near the Kennedy Space Center.

Frank DiBello, head of Space Florida, remains optimistic that commercial crew and cargo programs will bridge the gap to the next generation of deep-space exploration. Earlier this year, his agency signed a memorandum of understanding with Bigelow Aerospace, which intends to launch its first Orbital Space Complex from Cape Canaveral in 2014.

"The next vehicle to carry astronauts into space from Florida’s Space Coast will be a commercial spacecraft -- and this marks a historic change, perhaps the biggest in NASA's 50-year history,” said Bretton Alexander, president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation, a Washington, D.C.-based consortium of space companies.

Alexander said America’s space program received a "huge boost" earlier this month when NASA awarded $269 million to four commercial space companies that are developing the capability to take crews to low-Earth orbit commercially: Blue Origin, the Boeing Co., Sierra Nevada Corp. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (SpaceX).

Still, the competition for space-related business will be stiff and increasingly global in the post-shuttle age. Indeed, while Alexander said the $269 million federal contract will create "thousands of jobs across the United States," he could say only that a "significant number" would be in Florida.


ENDEAVORING FOR ONE LAST MISSION

Since Columbia soared into space on April 12, 1981, there have been 133 shuttle flights. Columbia's 22-year run ended disastrously on Jan. 16, 2003, when the orbiter broke up on re-entry, killing seven. On Jan. 28, 1986, Challenger blew apart barely a minute into its ascent, also killing seven, including schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe.

Endeavor, which was built to replace Challenger, made its maiden voyage May 7, 1992. Flying several historic missions, Endeavor provided the platform for the first four spacewalks on a single mission. One was the longest in space history, lasting more than eight hours.

The Endeavor crew also took part in the Commercial Protein Crystal Growth experiment. The research tested the production of protein crystals grown in microgravity.