IS THE NEW SPACE ENTREPRENEURIALISM GETTING READY TO TAKE OFF? Maybe.

While winding down the program, the agency has laid off 9,200 prime contractors, who in turn laid off thousands of subcontractors. Most staffers have been spared, although some have left NASA to pursue dreams no longer achievable at a diminished government agency. Many of these astronauts, scientists, and technologists are entering the startup world. “They are very bright and used to working on projects on a very large scale,” says Ted Schlein, a managing partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, which has funded three companies led by NASA vets, including Kemp’s.

But that’s not the really big news. This is:

The simultaneous rise of Silicon Valley and decline of state-sponsored space exploration could affect the career paths of a generation. More than 40 percent of the students attending one of the nation’s premier space programs, at Georgia Institute of Technology, now want to work for space-related startups instead of large NASA contractors such as Lockheed Martin (LMT), says professor Robert Braun, who left his post as NASA’s chief technologist last year. “The NASA brand is still pretty strong,” he says. But more and more students “want to work for a startup and get their hands dirty.”

That seems like a very, very good sign to me. Related item here.