Shuttle Blowup Casts Pall Over Lompoc Area’s Sudden Growth

LOMPOC, Calif. —  The space shuttle Challenger disaster has cast a pall of uncertainty over this city, the self-proclaimed shuttle capital of the West.

The first West Coast launch of a space shuttle, previously scheduled for July at nearby Vandenberg Air Force Base, had been expected to attract hundreds of thousands of spectators to the Lompoc area. But now, with the July launch suspended and the nation’s manned space program in limbo, local officials are concerned that some new businesses, built in anticipation of a horde of shuttle tourists, will not survive the delay.

The shuttle program, which created thousands of military and civilian jobs in the area, precipitated a building boom in Lompoc. Housing tracts and shopping centers proliferated; the amount of money spent on construction in the city increased from $9 million in 1980 to $61 million last year.

And developers, counting on a tourist influx associated with several shuttle launches a year, have almost quintupled the number of hotel and motel rooms in Lompoc in the last five years.

But if there is a lengthy delay of the Vandenberg launch, the economic impact in Lompoc will be severe, said Santa Barbara County Supervisor DeWayne Holmdahl. Postponement of the planned July launch came after two previous delays.

Holmdahl acknowledges that “motels and hotels have been overbuilt” in Lompoc and developers may have been too optimistic about the number of tourists expected.

“The new motels better have deep pockets or they won’t be able to hold on,” said George E. Brown, co-owner of a Lompoc hotel that recently opened and of another scheduled to open in March. “Builders saw all those tourists in Florida for the shuttle. And the city was so enamored with being the space capital of the world that they encouraged everyone to come in. They issued too many building permits, regardless of the shuttle delay, and some of the new motels could now be doomed.”

The assurances of President Reagan that the nation is determined to resume the shuttle program has reassured some in this small community in northern Santa Barbara County, and optimists suggest that the first Vandenberg launch might not be postponed for more than six months.

Economy Could Plummet

At the same time, the shuttle disaster has reinforced the arguments of some residents that Lompoc is too dependent on Vandenberg. If programs are canceled, the economy will plummet, they said, noting that in 1969, when Congress canceled the military’s Manned Orbiting Laboratory project, the town’s economy was devastated.

“Vandenberg sneezes,” said Michael Powers, a planner with the Santa Barbara County-Cities Area Planning Council, “and Lompoc catches a cold.”

Mayor Andrew Salazar accused the naysayers of being shortsighted. Northern Santa Barbara County’s growing offshore oil industry will bolster the economy, he said, and tourist dollars have not been eliminated, just delayed.

As Salazar discussed the future of his city, he leaned back in his chair, fixed his eyes on a distant corner of his office and dreamily declared that Lompoc “is the gateway to the stars.”

Salazar’s expectations for the self-described “Flower Seed Capital of the World” are extravagant and, some say, unrealistic. He hopes to parlay Lompoc’s space shuttle association into making the city a “major tourist attraction.”

Space Museum Planned

The city already has obtained 150 acres of federal land for a futuristic space museum and is trying to raise funds to build it. The museum, the city’s well-restored Spanish mission, the annual flower festival and the proximity to other tourist areas such as Solvang will create a solid tourism base, Salazar says.

He expects Lompoc--population 32,000 with another 20,000 scattered through the surrounding valley--to eventually attract between 1 million and 2 million visitors a year. And he hopes that the city will attract “spin-off” companies--high-tech firms involved in space science and technology.

“We have the past, the present and the future here,” he said, waving a hand expansively. “There’s no reason why this whole valley couldn’t be another Carmel. We’re only limited in the extent that we’re willing to invest in our dreams.”

Almost from its inception, Lompoc has been a city with an inferiority complex. Neither on the ocean nor on a major highway, but somewhere in between, Lompoc has been lampooned for its quaint name and remote location.

Set between Santa Maria to the north, which is larger, and Santa Barbara to the south, which also is larger and decidely more glamorous, Lompoc never has carved out a distinct identity. The city was the setting for a 1940 movie, “The Bank Dick,” but even national exposure did not do much for Lompoc. The film’s star, W. C. Fields, satirized the city and repeatedly mispronounced its name.

Local officials had hoped that Lompoc’s image would be revivified as a result of the launch of the space shuttle Discovery at Vandenberg.

“In the past, reporters always described the base as north of Santa Barbara. Nobody ever said anything about Lompoc,” said Holmdahl, who represents the Lompoc Valley on the Santa Barbara County board. “People here got an inferiority complex. . . . But the shuttle program has changed all that. After the Challenger tragedy, a lot of media people called Lompoc officials to get their reaction. . . . I think people finally know where Lompoc is.”

Store Sells Novelties

The space shuttle program has been the biggest event to hit the city, one local farmer said, since the Santa Ynez River flooded in 1969. A Lompoc novelty store, Space Country Souvenirs, offers shuttle-related items and now is selling memorial pictures and medallions commemorating the Challenger crew.

“Thirty minutes after the crash, before we were even open, people were lined up outside the store banging to get in,” said owner Harry Bernard. “They bought anything they could get their hands on about the Challenger.”

The local McDonalds has a large replica of the space shuttle Discovery in the center of the restaurant under three ceiling lights. And the community next to the base, Vandenberg Village, has embraced the space theme in its street names, which include Milky Way, Mars Avenue, Stardust Road and Capricorn Court.

But that is not to say that everyone here welcomes the idea of being the shuttle base. Many local farmers always have viewed the launch as a threat to their livelihood. The Lompoc Valley has a large agricultural community that, in addition to vegetable and dairy farms, is one of the biggest flower-growing areas in the United States.

Farmland Shrinking

But each year, as more prime land is purchased for shopping centers or housing developments, farmers have found it increasingly difficult to make a living. The less land there is available for farming, the higher the rent for the existing fields, said vegetable and flower farmer Bill Beattie.

“Some outside developers have offered the owner of one piece of land I’m farming five times the current value,” he said. “They just want it for speculation.”

A local activist group, the Vandenberg Action Coalition, which has long planned to protest the first shuttle launch here, now points to the Challenger explosion as an example of the “fallibility of computerized weapons systems . . . the kind of thing that could lead to an accidental nuclear war,” spokesman Peter Lumsdaine said. The coalition is disturbed about the intercontinental ballistic missile tests at the base and the assistance that the space shuttle program will give to President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars,” program.

Polar Orbit Base

Vandenberg, the Air Force’s third-largest base, was chosen as the nation’s second spaceport because a West Coast launch site was needed to put shuttles into polar orbit.

When a shuttle is launched from Kennedy, it rides the well-worn path around the Equator, so the extreme northern and southern regions of the Earth are beyond its scope. Polar-orbiting shuttles will permit detailed examination of those regions, including sections of China and the Soviet Union.

And a primary purpose of the Vandenberg program will be to use the shuttle as an orbiting platform for the launching of spy satellites.

Lompoc (a Chumash Indian word that means little lakes; the area was once marshland) was founded in 1870 as a farming community. The city is on the edge of a coastal valley surrounded by the deep green Santa Ynez Mountains. Each spring fields of dahlias, zinnias, marigolds and asters bloom, and the valley is transformed into a spectacular patchwork quilt of pastel flowers.

The city’s main employers--a federal prison, diatomaceous earth mines and the flower seed industry--had done little to change the fabric of the community. But Vandenberg, founded in 1957, immediately swelled Lompoc’s population and boosted its economy. Now the economy of the city is inextricably tied to the base.

Vandenberg’s “economic enhancement” of Santa Barbara County, according a report released by the base commander, Maj. Gen. Jack Watkins, exceeds $1 billion. About 15,000 civilian and military employees work at the base, and Vandenberg’s presence has created about 12,000 additional jobs in the community. The majority of the 2,000 shuttle complex construction workers have departed, but about 4,000 Air Force personnel and civilians are still working on the shuttle project.

Workers Laid Off

Contractors at Vandenberg recently laid off about 800 employees but that, Supervisor Holmdahl said, was not connected to the Challenger explosion. Largely because of the shuttle and other Vandenberg projects, he said, unemployment in the city--traditionally the highest in the county--already has been lowered from 11% in 1980 to the current 7%.

NASA’s pre-Challenger plans called for several missions a year. Local officials expect each to draw as many as 50,000 spectators. This has caused some concern in Lompoc, which is linked to the rest of the world by only three two-lane roads. There are fewer than 100,000 parking spaces in the valley.

Mayor Salazar, ever the optimist, expects as many as 750,000 people to attempt to reach Lompoc to view the first launch, whenever it comes. He hopes that when they leave, they not only will have put his city on the map, but also will finally know how to pronounce its name-- LOM-poke , he said, drumming a forefinger on his desk, not LOM-pock .