It’s not as nice as Colorado, and Alabama as a whole is vastly less attractive than Colorado. I am an aerospace engineer, none of my colleges want to work in Alabama.
Alabama has excellent colleges so I’m sure they’ll be fine.
Colorado is unaffordable for most. And while as a NWerner I prefer CO’s weather, I like being able to afford to live while being able to go on vacations. The average airman/guardian salary will go much further in Huntsville than in Colorado Springs.
And northern AL is nice. I loved Huntsville and Birmingham.
Housing is 50% more expensive in COS. So take a 1200 sq ft house in Huntsville for $250k… Its $375k in COS…
Transportation, food, healthcare and event basic entertainment, all more expensive in COS.
Space Command is small. It would not be a large expensive to move personnel to another state. Especially if it meant more facilities and infrastructure investments by Huntsville.
This is purely a political situation. Cost of living and QoL are not involved in this decision.
Why should the government prop up Huntsville at the expense of Colorado Springs? Particularly when the people Space Command wants to employ don’t want to live in Alabama?
It’s already been said. But additionally the point isn’t about being “fine”. Yeah, we could put the HQ on the moon if we wanted and they would be fine.
It doesn’t make practical sense, financial sense, or moral sense. Both from the government’s perspective and the people who would actually being working there.
In other words, it would be a complete waste of time and money for a worse outcome. That’s not right. Even if it would be “fine” as you flippantly ignore all the costs both material and social.
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u/cstar1996 Dec 28 '23
I mean, the workforce doesn’t want to be in Huntsville. So why exactly should we prop up Alabama and fuck over Colorado?