THE NEXT FRONTIER: Despite enormous layoffs, aerospace...

THE NEXT FRONTIER: Despite enormous layoffs, aerospace continues to employ thousands in Orange County, mostly at Rockwell International Corp. in Seal Beach and McDonnell Douglas in Huntington Beach. Both are at work on the super-light components of NASA’s next project, a space station. . . . McDonnell Douglas workers are building the station’s main structure, and Rockwell is in charge of the station’s electrical power system.

ADULT MODEL: Rockwell and McDonnell Douglas are also among the companies competing for a major contract to build the X-33, a successor to Rockwell’s space shuttle. McDonnell Douglas is working on a design it calls the Delta Clipper, which takes off and lands vertically. It’s scheduled for flight tests by the middle of 1996. . . . The design has already been accepted by some of its toughest customers: A model of the rocket is available from Toys R Us.

FEWER MILLIONS? For its part, Rockwell is developing two reusable launch vehicles--its X-33 design, above, which will take off like a rocket but land like an airplane, and its unmanned X-34. That one would be launched from a jetliner and used to boost small satellites into orbit. . . . Rockwell is part of a team that will spend $100 million on the X-34, and NASA will add $70 million by the end of the decade as the agency tries to privatize space development. . . . Says Kent M. Black, Rockwell’s chief operating officer: “Together with NASA, we will make low-cost access to space a reality.”

STILL GOING: Although Hughes Aircraft Co. is reducing its Fullerton plant to 1,500 employees--one-tenth of its 1986 peak--through transfers and layoffs, the company is also still heavily involved in satellites and communications systems. . . . Most recently, the company’s airport systems division in Fullerton won a $42.2-million contract to build computer systems at Hong Kong’s new Chek Lap Kok Airport. . . . The airport, which will cost $8.78 billion altogether, is being built on several small islands and on land that is being reclaimed around them.