WBRZ - Baton Rouge

Today the giant external fuel tank for the final scheduled flight of the space shuttle program leaves the manufacturing plant in New Orleans.

It's the end of an era for one aspect of manned space flight - and the prospect of unemployment for some of the 1,000 people working for tank contractor Lockheed Martin Corp.

The operation at NASA's Michoud Assembly Facility once employed 5,000 people at the height of the shuttle program.

The future of the space program in New Orleans is unclear.

President Barack Obama has proposed cancellation of the Constellation program, which is designed to send astronauts back to the moon and perhaps Mars.

The state had hoped that program would provide 1,900 jobs in New Orleans.