The Florida Roundup - State spending on ‘Alligator Alcatraz,' Florida's shrinking citrus industry, legislative session nears its end

Episode Date: March 6, 2026

This week on The Florida Roundup, we looked at state spending on Alligator Alcatraz, the immigration detention center near the Everglades with Eve Sample, executive director of Friends of the Everglades (00:00). Then, we visited a small citrus farm in Central Florida (20:20). And we looked at what’s left on lawmakers’ agenda as the 2026 legislative draws close to an end (37:30).

Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org. This is the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. We are live from Central Florida Public Media in Orlando. It is terrific to see everybody out here on a Friday afternoon. Thank you so much for joining us here for our live on the road, Florida Roundup. We've got live music this hour with Joseph Giovanni and Intensity. you Joseph. Thank you, Robert on drums and Jake Kelly on guitar, the trio here with us all hour long.

We've got a great program for you. We're going to talk about Hidden Orlando. If there's something that you know what you need to do in Central Florida, that's beyond the mouse ears, beyond the superhero roller coasters, we want to hear from you because we brought our email inbox with us here to Orlando on the road. The email is radio at the Florida roundup.org. But let's start by talking about public education. Let's talk about. through 12 public education here in central Florida. There are tens of thousands of empty desks in public schools all across the Sunshine State this school year, including here in Orlando. The local school district, the Orange County Public Schools, is home to about 200,000 students. That makes it one of the largest districts in the state. And despite a growing population, as evidence by traffic that we've all experienced just this morning here in Orlando in the Orange County area, Despite growing population, the district here, like many others, may have to close several neighborhood schools. And already it has seen state funding drop. School districts across the state have been experiencing this from Miami to Tampa, Jacksonville to here in Orlando, closing traditional public schools. So if your neighborhood school may be impacted, we want to hear from you.

Where do your kids and grandkids, nieces and nephews, cousins go to school, and why did you or your... grandparents or your parents make those decisions. Let us know by radio at the Florida Roundup.org is our email address. Radio at the Florida roundup.org. Maria Vasquez is with us. The superintendent of Orange County Public Schools here live in Orlando. Superintendent, welcome to the program. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. We really appreciate your time. So how has enrollment changed in Orange County this year? Well, we have continued to see a decline in our enrollment we were projected last spring to be down about 3,000 students and when we

started school in the fall we were down 6,600 students so an additional 3,600 of which about 45% of those were students who were immigrants we are also projecting another 5,000 student decline next year Another decline next year. I want to go back to this year, though, when you talk about immigrant students, are you attributing their removal from the school as a consequence of immigration enforcement? No, we have not had ICE that has come on our campus. This has been primarily due to the sunsetting of some of the protections for those families that were here,

primarily those from Venezuela. But we are not seeing. Temporary protected status specifically. So you're not seeing immigration enforcement on campus, but are you seeing any impact of enforcement in the community and families not comfortable sending children to school? We do have a number of our families that do not feel comfortable sending their children to school. Have you been able to quantify that number?

We have not, but what we have done is that we have provided outreach to those families and have offered our virtual program, Orange County Virtual School, as an option, so that their children can continue to receive instruction and services without having to leave the confines of their home. What's been the take-up of that offer of service? We do not specifically track those number of students, but we do know that we've seen an increase in the number of families that are choosing virtual school as an option. Hundreds?

thousands, thousands? I would say that it's at least in the hundreds right now. Let's talk about another potential source of this drop in traditional public school, which is vouchers.

Yes. All right. So what have you been able to attribute to the expansion of school vouchers here in Florida, where they had been very narrowly defined for certain purposes. Now, a parent or a guardian can request those dollars, essentially follow their child to a private

school, a parochial school, should they so choose? Or homeschool. Or homeschool. So although declining birth rate, housing trends, immigration have impacted our declining enrollment, the primary source of that decline is a family empowerment scholarship, which offers the families the opportunity, regardless of income, to take advantage of about $9,000 to educate their child. And one thing that I want to be clear is that we are very much in favor of choice. Families should have the opportunity to pick the best environment for their child.

The ability to expand choice also makes us better. Should the dollars follow the child out of the traditional public school system? What is happening is that the funding is coming at the expense of public schools. It's being funded on our backs. instead of funding equally the family empowerment scholarship and public schools, they are doing it on our backs. And so what does that mean? That means that we are receiving fewer dollars to be able to educate our children and expand choice for them as well. And we continue to see that trend happening.

For example, we are required to transport all children who live outside of the two-mile range to and from school, as well as students with unique abilities and for our students who are homeless. But we only receive about 50% of the dollars to do so. Superintendent, a question from Rob and our audience here live at Central Florida Public Media with the ramp up of the school voucher program going to religious-based schools. Rob's just curious about the constitutionality of this. Have there been any lawsuits? Is the school district considering or has it taken any kind of legal challenge. We have not taken any form of legal challenge and where we have seen the greatest number of families taking advantage of the scholarships are the homeschool families. Not private school,

not public school. Probably not private school, not parochial school. There's been an increase in the number of families that have chosen to go to a private school. But the largest number from the last data I saw is those families are choosing to homeschool. Could you give us a sense of the number? No, I cannot. Okay, fair enough. I don't want to give you inaccurate numbers, but families are given, like I said, about $9,000. And with those dollars, they are able to, if they want, invest that in private school, they could. But you're seeing people use that for homeschool. It did, yes. And there's certain expectations that come with that homeschool under the state requirements, certain forms that they have to fill out, at least, I would say that. So,

question here from Bill and several people asking this question to us live from our audience. Talk a little bit about the sustainability of education funding for public schools with the funding moving toward charter schools. That is a huge concern for all of us in public education, which is why we appreciate forms like this to be able to educate our public and help them advocate for our schools. We know that education is the greatest equalizer. It is what will give our students the opportunity to be successful, to be able to thrive in our community,

and as a result of that, our community gets better. We can't do that if we don't have public schools. Let me put some dollars in cents to this superintendent because it was announced, I think, this week or certainly this year, that the district will lose $17 million in state funding that it had been planning on receiving from the state because of the drop in enrollment of the latest numbers. So because the drop in enrollment, the per child payment to the school district now goes down by about $17 million that will be held back in future payments from the state government in Florida to the Orange County Public Schools.

What's the impact on the district's budget? We are dealing with the budget deficit in two primary ways. Number one, we're looking at cuts to school budgets as well as district budgets. But unfortunately, we are also being forced to look at school consultants. And for this upcoming school year, we are looking to consolidate seven of our schools, six are elementary and one is middle. Consolidate is one of those diplomatic phrases here, superintendent. It means closing of neighborhood schools, right? Yes. Are these elementary schools? Are they a mix of levels?

Yes, there are six of them that are elementary schools. One is a middle school. And is it solely, are the metrics, are the guidelines? here solely on headcount of those schools? The primary, the primary criteria is the capacity. In other words, how many students are attending the facility. We have a break-even point where we actually are not expending extra dollars on our schools. And the schools that we have selected have for the past several years seen a decline in enrollment and in the projections out for the next 10 years

are not meeting that threshold, which is about 680 students. We're speaking with the superintendent of the Orange County Public Schools here, Maria Vasquez, as we're live from Central Florida Public Media, our partner station in Orlando. It is the Florida Roundup on this Friday on the road. Talking about public education,

Orange County, just one of those many counties in Florida that is considering consolidating schools, closing schools, as it's seen, its traditional school enrollment drop for multiple reasons. reasons. A question here from Frank in the audience. And Superintendent, this is one of those great practical questions. Schools that will close contain assets, furniture, books, periodicals, machinery, lab tools and equipment, supplies of all kinds. What will happen to these items

if a school should be consolidated or closed? So the students that are currently attending those schools are going to be rezoned to other schools. So many of those assets will follow the child for those that we have that are surplus those will go to towards our to our warehouse and then those will other schools have the opportunity to take advantage of those so for example we may not need all of the cafeteria tables there may be another school that has was considering buying new cafeteria tables they can then take advantage of these and those will be sent over to that school Justin has been listening into this conversation, Superintendent from Archer, Florida.

Justin writes, Alachua County is currently in the process of closing two or three schools. Justin writes, these are predominantly black schools. The county also gave approval to private schools in the county. This, I think, Justin writes, is directly a cause of the charter schools taking money from traditional public schools. Talk about the impact of charter school growth here. And specifically the Schools of Hope program. The Schools of Hope program is one that is a charter program that invites charter operators into a school district,

such as Orange County Public Schools, to utilize what are considered underutilized schools, right? And Orange County received dozens of these requests, I believe, by the state deadline. We received 54. And how many were approved? Zero. And why is that?

So let me, if I may, just expand a little bit about the Hope Operators. So Hope operators are approved by the state to be able to provide services to significantly underperforming schools. And there's an actual list of schools for the various districts and the criteria that gives them that category. under the under last year's requirements a hope operator could co-locate in other words you would have their school and one of our schools operating within the same building we would pay for transportation cost we would pay for the staff to be able to clean the school we would also be paying for food and nutrition since then there has been quite a bit of outcry and there were not clear delineations like what is the capacity of the school does it have to be 80% 90% what if I have a new apartment building that's going to open up in two years and the seats that are vacant today are not going to be vacant next year so the state has responded with changes to that language we're waiting for them to finalize that so it will make it a little bit better. We are still going to be required to provide those services.

And currently, we don't foresee that we are going to have any of our schools that will qualify for a school of hope operator. So you do not expect schools of hope to open in Orange County public schools? As of today, I can tell you, I don't believe so. Why do you think so many parents and guardians in Orange, Orange County are choosing homeschool versus a traditional public school environment. So I think there's a couple of reasons. Number one, we have not always been good listeners to what our families are asking for.

We've been more of, not me, I won't say a one-size fits all, but we haven't had as many opportunities for different programming. And so we are doing a much better job of getting feedback from our families, not just about magnet programs that they would like, but what is it that you are looking for in your neighborhood school? We're also reaching out. I do town halls with our middle and high school students, and we're talking to them about what is it that you want. Surprisingly, what are you hearing back? We're hearing that they want more expanded coursework. They want more opportunities for clubs and engagement. And so we've made some of those adjustments for this year and for the upcoming school year.

Additionally, we do have some families that are looking for specialized services that we have not been able to provide. And some have left because of a bullying of their child. And so although we try to investigate and get to the bottom of the bullying, many times families are under the impression that if they say something, it's going to make it worse. And so we always encourage our families to please let us know so we can intervene. And then we've also started to survey our families as they are, if they're withdrawing, we want to know why. And it's been a mix. Some are moving out of district because of work. Some are looking to find more specialized services.

It may be that they're looking for a specific, maybe it's a Montessori type of education. And so we're taking all of that in and looking to see how we may be able to provide more of those programs for our families. Let me ask you about probably one of the overriding issues this legislative session in Florida that Florida voters may decide come November, which is the future of non-school property taxes, homestead of property taxes for primary.

Now, non-school meaning that the funding of property taxes that you all pay into Orange County Public Schools would be put aside in any of these proposals coming out of the state legislature. But how are you hearing this debate, though? How are you listening to this? We certainly are attuned to everything that is going on in Tallahassee. And as many of you may know,

we are very thankful to our public because our public has supported the additional mill and the half-penny sales tax. The mill always comes up. We're talking about tax rates here, folks, right? It funds 10% of our budget. Yeah. So we are listening very carefully. We have not made a decision about if we are going to go out for another extension, but certainly

the conversations around what's happening with property taxes in Tallahassee is something we're tuning in. Yeah. Those voter approved tax increases last for four years, and then you have to go back, I believe, here in Florida. Superintendent, thank you for spending your time with us here. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you. Thank you. With us live at Central Florida Public Media. Joseph Giovanni, an intensity along with us for music, guys. We're going to continue here listening to some great tunes. We've got a lot to come here as we continue live on this Friday here from Central Florida Public Media in Orlando. This year is perhaps one of the most important years in the space.

industry here in the Sunshine State and some big news on this Friday, NASA announcing an overhaul of its Artemis Moon project. The return to the moon begins here in the Sunshine State and we want to talk about it. We'd love to hear from you how you experience the space industry. Our email is open there in cyberspace. It is radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Joseph Giovanni and Intensity with our music here. We will continue next on the Florida Roundup. Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at

Everglades Foundation.org. Joseph Giovanni and intensity here, live music as we're live on this Friday from Orlando from our partner, Central Florida Public Media on the Florida Roundup. I'm Tom Hudson. Joseph, great to be with you, Robert. Jay, thanks so much for the music and the supporters of Central Florida Public Media here out in force. Great to see everybody here. Next week on our program, we're going to be talking about the quickly disappearing Florida Orange. You know, as I've spent some time up here in Central Florida this week, I was able to walk around these orange groves. And oh my goodness, have they shrunk?

The Florida orange crop in 20 years is down by 90 percent. 90% drop in Florida orange growth. It's the fruit that made Florida in the 20th century. It is vanishing disease, disasters, and development. Those are the three forces that are pushing against the Florida orange. So what are growers doing to try to save the Florida orange? What is the citrus industry in Florida? What's Florida without the citrus industry, for that matter?

And hey, listen, is OJ still in your refrigerator? You still have it? Did you have any? All right. We want to hear from you for next week's program. It is Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. Radio at the Florida Roundup.org. It is a story of a fourth-generation citrus grower.

It is orange juice in the glass less than two hours after it was picked from the tree and a farm employee from Jamaica who was a rap artist. That is the story of the citrus industry that I've been able to report this week while here in central Florida. That's next week. All right. Now is the space race. It is roaring here along the space coast and throughout Florida.

but faces some new uncertainty at the same time. NASA's top administrator just today on this Friday announced the Artemis Moon program was going back to basics. The return to the moon and eventually to Mars begins maybe as soon as April right here from the Sunshine State. Brendan Byrne is with us with our partner, Central Florida Public Media. You know him as the host of Are We There Yet, the podcast here from Central Florida Public Media. Brendan, get us updated. What did NASA announce today? So NASA's administrator, Jared Isaac, Ben, pretty much shook up the Artemis program.

So we all know about Artemis 2, right? We're waiting for that to leave the planet as early as April. The flyby by the moon. The fly by the moon, yes. And the following mission, Artemis 3 was supposed to land humans on the moon. Well, we learned today that NASA's changing now. They're going to make Artemis 3 more like the Apollo missions, where they will go to low Earth orbit and rendezvous with a potential future landing mission.

And then Artemis 4 and 5 will send humans back to the moon for the first time in more than 50 years. Why make this change now so close to the long? or expected launch of Artemis 2. So it's forward-looking. So Artemis 2 will not change. But Isaacman sees that things aren't moving fast enough. And when you have three years in between missions, like you are with SLS and Artemis, you learn some things.

You lose learning, things get rusty. And you need to go faster, right? Think about the Apollo program. Just in a few years we went from launching to landing. That's what he wants to do. He wants to speed it up, and that's going to get us there. Greg Autrey is also with us here. Perhaps the best nickname of your job, Space Tsar, Greg.

It is terrific. He is the Associate Provost for Space Commercialization Strategy at the University of Central Florida here in Orlando. Greg, is this overhaul a sign of something more systemic within this program? Yeah, and I don't think there can be any question. There have been systemic challenges with this program. I sat on the NASA agency review team in 2016 is one of the people creating the Trump Space Policy.

when he came in for this first administration with a small group of people. We came to the conclusion and going to the moon made sense with the assets that NASA had at the time and made that recommendation to the vice president's office. And it got support. But we would have assumed we would have been on the moon. Footprints on the moon by 2024. We're not anywhere near there. Here we are, February of 26.

Nobody should be surprised. So what's the systemic issue or issues here? It's a long way. How much time do we have? How much time? You know, as an administrative type, Greg, how do you identify those pressure points here? Sure. Yeah.

And I was the nominee to be the chief financial officer of NASA twice. So I've been briefed deeply and gone through a lot of this. But, I mean, frankly, it's obvious that every single component of this program is over budget and behind schedule. You know, whether that's the rocket, the capsule, the landers, all of it, the space. And why is that? Why is it behind schedule and over budget? It's complicated to get to the moon. We know that.

It's complicated to go beyond the moon, certainly. But why? I think, first of all, the passion that you had during the Apollo program isn't always there, and that isn't to say people at NASA and people in this room, love space, but it isn't the national priority that it was at that moment, that sense of urgency. I think Jared Isaacan is bringing in a great sense of urgency. There's also huge manufacturing problems in this country and supply chain problems,

in this country because we made a decision back in the 90s to offshore our entire manufacturing supply chain. And when you don't have those people going through trade schools and learning to do machining and the things that you need to do space, you have a problem. You can't have an economy that only builds the F-35 and spacecraft. The whole thing has to work. Brendan, I want to ask about some of these perhaps systemic issues and larger issues because it was just this month that NASA released a report about the Starliner challenge. This capsule with humans on board goes to the International Space Station.

There was trouble with the thrusters before it docked and then the thing comes back empty with no humans on board. A pretty significant report and analysis of what has gone wrong here. Is that related? So, so give us a quick encapsule of that report of what's happened with the Starliner program, which is a Boeing product. A Boeing product, yeah. So, NASA had this investigation into it. Jared Isaac had been made the investigation. investigation public and earlier this month did a pretty public scolding of both Boeing and his own agency in kind of mishandlings of this thing.

He says most troubling failure revealed by this investigation is not hardware. It's decision making and leadership that if left on check could create a culture incompatible with human spaceflight. That's pretty significant because the technical issues were pretty bad. They were not able to steer the caps of. chain issues that Greg talks about, right? And manufacturing onshore versus offshore, right? That's hardware issues. This is human assets.

Yeah. And he outlined a lot of things that had happened behind the scenes that led to some of these systemic issues that Greg mentioned. But, you know, Boeing and NASA were hiding information from one another. There was a system of distrust between them. There was unprofessionalism in determining when and how to bring the astronauts back. It was very scathing report. Greg, is this a consequence, maybe a natural or unnatural consequence of the commercialization

of what had been the public investment in space travel, space exploration with NASA? No, I think, honestly, it's the opposite of that. It was harder and harder for NASA to hire really good people to do the jobs that they need to do at NASA on federal salaries, particularly when it comes to areas like software. And consequently, those folks went to the commercial sector, which has done some amazing things. I mean, you cannot miss the fact that from my doc in Melbourne, I see two, three, sometimes four launches happening every week, sometimes two and one day. And we're seeing bigger and more capable rockets. And the reliability and the cadence of those rockets is getting better than number of satellites.

Anyway, the commercial sector is hitting on all cylinders. There's the problems mostly have to do with the way, frankly, that NASA has managed the program. And within some of the vendors, the complexity of dealing with the government is much worse. Procurement and regulations of those kinds of things. I won't say who it was, but a previous NASA administrator said to me that if I ran the Artemis program, the way that James Webb ran the Apollo program, I would be in jail. But James Webb was able to get it done, and I was able to not go to jail. Brendan, you've got sources, I suspect, on both sides of this debate, on the commercial side as well as the NASA side.

Are you hearing the same kind of rumblings on background? Yeah, it's actually really interesting because this whole Boeing report, from the people that I'm talking about are talking to, they see this as a sign of how Jared Isaacman intends to run his agency. They're with more oversight over these contractors. But what was really interesting that Isaac said today, which kind of goes against what Greg says, makes a program successful is he wants to bolster the civil servants to make Artemis work. So instead of relying on contractors, hire them into the agency as well. So that could be problematic based on Greg's insight.

But that is where the direction that they're heading. To be clear, but I'm not saying he shouldn't hire people into the agency. He's going to have a real hard time competing, particularly in areas of software, for instance, where people can get out of college and go get $300, $400. hundred thousand dollars from silicon valley and then they want to go work at NASA for $90,000 it's just it's not happening so a challenge I should say yeah yeah yeah if if not for the Artemis news and the overhaul and the back-to-basics news that came we would be talking about a rocket launch that happened yeah right I mean there was still a launch today on this

Florida from the space coast tell us about that I don't even know about it it was great you remember it was a Starlink launch today it was a Starlink it was more satellite As folks here in this room know, there's probably Starlink launch every other day. I know, right. It may be old hat to you folks here in the space coast, but yet we're still moving this cargo up into low Earth orbit. Which is wild, like that that we've gotten to this point, right? That, you know, this is... I don't even know.

I used to watch every single space launch. And now I can't even get my wife to walk out the door and go back. So listen. So to that point, a question here from Art in the audience. Art, thank you for this question. We appreciate it. Art says, as a former college instructor, I'm curious about how today's youth view space science as a potential career. When I last taught over a decade ago, it did not seem that there was much interest and curiosity about our universe at large.

Of course, there were exceptions. Two kind of questions in there. The universe at large, right, that existential question, but also as it applies to space exploration and space technology. Brendan, your thoughts on this and Greg, yours as well. From the people I've talked to, the space industry has a public perception problem. People are not as excited about it as they used to be. There are efforts to get kids involved in steam and STEM and get them along this direction there. But, you know, there's a lot to be done when it comes to.

The first Artemis 1 launch, I expected to be stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic coming home after covering that. And it wasn't. There weren't a lot of people out there for it. And so, you know, maybe when we see when Artemis II launches, when there's people on board, they're going to leave the planet. If there's that excitement, that'll kind of be my litmus test. Yeah. Greg, how about for you? Yeah.

For the broader public, I completely agree with you. And I'm surprised the number of people who don't even know there is an Artemis II mission, which was absolutely impossible in, say, 1968 with Apollo 8. That said, if you go look at the aerospace engineering enrollments in colleges, it's an amazing uptick. And mostly they're excited by what's been happening in the commercial space. and the ability to participate in that because they know they can go to a company and make a difference immediately and work on something that's actually going to fly months later. So the Space Coast experienced double-digit unemployment and falling home prices after the space shuttle program shut down. Greg, what is lasting about this boom in the private space race that may be able to outlast what we've seen of the ups and downs of the space coast economy?

Because the entrepreneurs have found commercial demand for space launch. And Starlink is the perfect example of that. It is generating massive amounts of revenue. Airlines and cruise lines are signing up as fast as they can. And it is transformative for people in remote parts of the world. And that works. The imaging constellations we have are generating data. It's incredibly valuable and combined with the power of AI to look at all those

and doesn't produce actionable business information, there's real value there. So it is sustainable. You are quoted as saying the first trillionaires with a T, I believe that is, with a T, yes, Greg, with trillionaires, yes, will be people who invested in space and they're going to get their returns. That second part is really important, and I want to ask you about that, because what's your timeline for that return on investment, Greg? Well, I think you're going to see the first space trillionaire within a decade, and that could happen really soon if, depending on how many shares, Musk wants to sell of SpaceX when

he goes IPO. He could do that. But in my opinion, the economic growth from space is going to continue at a much higher rate than overall GDP for as far out as I can see. And there will be an inflection point. I don't think it will be a linear thing. What's the return on investment for taxpayers? Because the first dollars into the space exploration and the space market economy were American taxpayer dollars and still are today. Considerable amount. Same as they were with railroads, the Internet, the National Highway system. But we wouldn't question the value of any of those things economically.

So the return is jobs, businesses, prosperity, and a better standard of living. And, you know, you can be connected everywhere. People are not going to be lost at sea or lost to the forest ever again. Yeah. That's it. Let me remind folks, you're listening to a live Florida Ronda from your Florida Public Radio. I'm Tom Hudson. We're live at Central Florida, public media in Orlando on this Friday in front of a live studio audience. Great to see everybody here. We're talking about space with Greg Autry from University of Central Florida.

Brendan Byrne, host of the Are We There Yet podcast? Important to answer to that question, I suppose, and at least right on this Friday. We're not yet there. Brendan, let me ask you about the presence of private space here in Florida because it really revitalized the space coast in Florida after the shutdown of the space shuttle program. How would you describe the presence of the private space, the blue origins, the SpaceX, and some of the smaller firms here? It's here and it's growing. I mean, any time I go out to the space coast to cover a mission, there is a new building popping up somewhere right outside the Kennedy Space Center. I don't think a lot of people are aware, but the state has its own agency called Space Florida, whose job it is to go out there and bring commercial companies to the state of Florida. They are revitalizing the old shuttle landing facility, which, is no longer in use since we no longer have a shuttle program,

but now it is bustling out there with hangers and workers and all sorts of things. And it's throughout the state as well. So you're starting to see a huge growth in this industry. Eugenia notes in her card here from the audience. Thank you for this. She writes, I heard on NPR, right on, Eugenia. You heard on NPR, you know you can trust it when you start out a question like that, that there are hundreds of space launches every year.

Last year was a record number of space launches. this year could be yet another new record, perhaps. She writes, I'm concerned about the impacts to climate change from all the emissions from the space program. And then we have a similar question from Karen asking, how is the space coast addressing the issues of water and air pollution on a daily basis due to the space launches? How are we protecting the environment, the wetlands,

and those kinds of areas? Greg, tackle that type of concern. Sure. Great question. First of all, the current generation of rockets that you see fly the most, the United Launch Alliance Atlas, 5, which is being retired, and the SpaceX Falcon 9, which is being retired, burn kerosene, essentially, with liquid oxygen.

And they do produce some particulate and hydrocarbons that are of concerns. The newer rockets, though, all burn methane or like Artemis hydrogen. And the only thing they're emitting is water vapor and CO2. From a climate perspective, you might be a little concerned about the CO2, but the volume, even at hundreds of launches a year, is pretty irrelevant. Each launch is about the same as a jet flight, a commercial jet flight across the United States and there are thousands of those every day. So hundreds a year isn't going to be a comparative impact to that. Brendan, for you from Lorenza, are there any dark sky areas left around

Central Florida for stargazing? Yes. Yes. There's lots. There's a great question. And actually art would probably know more. Your backyard one of them? My backyard is not one of them. No, but I'm more than happy to have you over there. There's the Kissimmee Prairie, I think, is one of them. That is a dedicated dark sky place. There's also the dry tortugas if you want to go and do some camping out there. You take a boat and they drop you off and then you come back, but you can see the Milky Way from both of those places. Oh, terrific.

Brendan Byrne, are we there yet? Podcasts here from Central Florida Public Media. Greg Autry with the University of Central Florida. Thank you for each of you and what you do here for our broadcast. You are listening to a live program here in Orlando. Stick with us. We're going to talk about Hidden Orlando, Hidden Central Florida. Send us your thoughts.

at the Florida Roundup.org. You're listening to it from your Florida Public Radio station. Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org. We are live here on this Friday for the Florida Roundup. Joseph Giovanni and Intensity, thank you very much

for sharing your talents with all of us here on the Florida Roundup. see you guys Robert on drums, Jay Kelly on guitar, and Joseph, of course, on vocals and keys. My name is Tom Hudson. We are live in Orlando. How about a great place to be on a Friday, right? In front of our friends at Central Florida Public Media. What a terrific opportunity to spend a great Friday here in February. So who's got friends or family visiting in Florida this year? Who's got them? Hands up. Yep, they're on there. Boy, most hands are up here in Central Florida. You know, and regardless of where we live, odds are that those friends and family that are tired of shoveling snow and putting on mittens and hats are probably thinking about a trip to Florida to visit us in the Panhandle or somewhere

on the peninsula and odds are that a theme park or roller coaster may be on their hopes for itinerary. I'm seeing some heads shake no. That's a red line. Don't come and visit if you want to come to the theme park. Well, listen, theme parks are very important, of course, for the economy here in central Florida and for all of Florida because after all, the Orlando airport is. is the busiest airport in the Sunshine State for a reason. But Central Florida, Orlando, we know, are much more than big turkey legs, long lines, and dolphin dances.

So what's your hidden Orlando? We want to hear from you. It's not locals only, right? What do you do? When you come to visit Orlando yourself from other places in Florida, radio at the Florida roundup.org is our email address. Ricky Lee is with us, founder of Tasty Choms Orlando Food Guide. Ricky, thank you so much for being here. Much appreciated.

Thank you for having me. So it's a Friday in Orlando. If we're sticking around, what should we be thinking about? Well, this weekend is Panda Fest, Orlando, which is one of the largest Asian night market and food festivals in the nation. They're here in Orlando this weekend. And it's kind of like a roundup of the Lunar New Year celebrations that have been having past couple weeks here in Orlando.

You mentioned like, oh, what do you do when you come up to Orlando? I actually was born and raised in West Palm Beach, Florida. Okay. And as a child, of course, you're going to go visit Disney World. But as part of that trip, my family would always stop by the Mills 50 district, which is the Vietnamese section of Orlando. Actually, this is the largest Vietnamese concentration of businesses and restaurants in the state of Florida. And we would always pick up bun-may sandwiches or grocery items and things like that for the road trip home.

Yeah. There's a large Puerto Rican population, of course, in Orlando is enormous. but a large diaspora from a global diaspora is here and really influencing the culinary opportunities to experience central Florida in different ways. Yes, there's a large Brazilian population now, lots of Brazilian markets and restaurants popping up as well. Like I said earlier, Mills 50 has had national and international acclaim

with Michelin Guide Awards and recognition from James Beard Foundation and things like that. Now, it wasn't that way when you were visiting with your parents as a kid, was it? Now, it was mostly like, you know, ethnic groceries and Miss Saigon restaurant and, you know, Fah 88 and things like that, which are more traditional. But now, you know, as the older generation are retiring, the second and new generations are coming up and starting their own businesses and bringing their own flavors. And it's amazing to see. You know, like a lot of folks that now call Florida home, many of us called someplace else home, maybe last week, last month, last year, last decade. How is that infusion?

of new population changing the culinary tastes. Well, you know, I did hear some statistics that about 20, since 2020, the population in Central Florida has grown by 20%. So that's quite a bit. And so- It's a lot of stomachs to feed, too. Folks in New York and other areas come down here and bringing some of their styles.

But also some, you know, prodigal sons, some folks from Orlando went off to Vegas, went off to Japan, and came back with those skills that they learned and started Kaya, which is the first Michelin Green starred Filipino American restaurant here in Florida. Question from the audience here. We hear a lot about Disney swamps and mountains, but are there any noteworthy geographical features hidden in Orlando? Here's one favorite thing. If you have friends coming in town, take them out to see the canals of Winter Park.

The Winter Park boat tour is a very popular attraction. every day, pretty much on the hour, they have, you know, I think it's like $20, and you can travel through the Venice of Florida as well, I like to call it. Wait a second, wait a second. I'm from South Florida, Fort Lauderdale. May want to arm wrestle you on that one. Laszell is over there? Yeah, yeah, exactly.

But they won't be able to see Mr. Rogers' neighborhood home when he went to Rollins College. His parents bought a house on the canals there. And, of course, if you go on a Saturday, you can check out the Winter Park Farmers Market and, of course, walk along Park Avenue and explore all the restaurants and the things there. What about opportunities for nature in Central Florida, right? I mean, there's, you know, there's an opinion or an impression, right? It's just strip mall after six-lane highway, but there is still, I was out wandering around in Orange Grove yesterday and just terrific wildlife all over.

Yes, the great thing that you mentioned that there is also the Orlando Wetlands Park in East Orlando, where you can go in Birdwatch. actually part of the city of Orlando, you know, wastewater, you know, kind of treatment where they finalize the last leg by going through this wetland system and out into the rivers. So it's a beautiful place to spot wildlife and birds and things like that. So you've got the food blog. You're telling us about Hidden Orlando here. You're also involved with the civic engagement organization, the Asian-American Pacific

Islanders coming together. Tell us about the intersection between. all of this? Oh, yes. It's important. Asian Americans are like the least likely to vote of any group. And so we try to, you know, encourage folks to get involved, make sure their voices are heard. And actually, Orlando is home to the very first Vietnamese American congresswoman, Stephanie Murphy, who was elected a couple years ago. So, yeah, there's quite a few options to get involved. And it's always important to have our voices heard. What is, and finally, what's your weekend plan? Can you share it with us?

This weekend. I actually headed out of, uh, Orlando to Tampa, which is basically a suburb now for a wedding. Speaking of the concrete ribbons, right? Yeah. Yeah. But the Panda Fest is a great one to check out, and there's lots of different events. Ramadan is going on right now for those folks, and so there's lots of places open late at night and different festivals with that, too.

I mean, this is the season, right? It's February and Florida, right? Crowded. The tourists are here, but also it's, to some degree, the best opportunity to take advantage of all of this for those of us who live here, year. Yes, exactly. Winter Park sidewalk art festivals come up in a couple weeks as well. There you go.

Wonderful. Ricky, thanks so much for being here. We really appreciate it. Ricky Lee, everybody here with us on the Florida Roundup. A little bit of Hidden Orlando. Finally on the Roundup this week, live from Central Florida Public Media. We're going to get off into the weekend with some great music. Joseph Giovanni and Intensity.

Fellas, take it away. Let's help the weekend get started. Spread us love. Love. That's love. Shoes love. Spread loose love. Joseph Giovanni and intensity, ladies and gentlemen.

Let's keep it going. Joseph, Robert Bradley on drums. Thank you very much. Jay Kelly on guitar, ripping that solo. Guys, let's keep on plan. We want to get everybody out of here on time and let folks know that the Florida Roundup is produced by WLRN Public Media in Miami and WUSF in Tampa.

Bridget O'Brien and Denise Royal with us here in Orlando, our producers. Thank you very much. Back in Miami, our technical director, M.J. Smith and our vice president of radio at WLRN in Miami, Peter Mares. Engineering help here in Orlando with Doug Peterson, T.J. with Central Florida Public Media. Thank you, sir. Behind the board, we've got Harvey Bissard and Ernesto J. in Miami as well. Big thanks to everybody here at Central Florida Public Media for their hospitality and their continued support of this program. and to each and every one of you who are supporters of public media in the Sunshine State. Thank you so much for spending your time and your treasure with us.

Live music with Joseph Giovanni and Intensity, fellas, thank you so much as well. And financial support for the public for Florida Roundup here on the road is provided in part by Florida Public Media, whose mission is to be a trusted, dependable, and welcome part of the lives of all Floridians. Thank you for emailing today. Thank you for being here live and our friends. Orlando at Central Florida Public Media, and across the state, thank you for listening.

I'm Tom Hudson. Have a terrific and safe weekend. We'll talk to you next week. Support for Florida Roundup comes from the Everglades Foundation, working to restore and protect Florida's $1 trillion asset that helps to bring clean water to Floridians. Learn more at Everglades Foundation.org.