NORTH COUNTRY, N.Y. -- NASA Flight Controller and Clarkson University graduate Michael Sarafin spoke about the importance of the country's space program Friday.

"NASA really is an investment in America. It's not just something that you go off and you give money for a project and you don't necessarily see a tangible benefit as a result of that," said Sarafin.

But NASA recently announced it could lose up to 8,000 jobs when its Space Shuttle program ends in 2010.

The next program, Constellation, isn't expected to begin until years later, but Sarafin said it's too soon to worry.

"The Space Shuttle is not going to retire tomorrow. We've got at least another two years of flight ahead of us, and then Constellation is not going to fly tomorrow. It's going to take some time to get that program in an operational state. Time will tell where we end up," said Sarafin.

Sarafin was on campus for the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Student Conference. And while he argues the changing program will offer exciting new engineering opportunities, he did say the immediate future could prove uncertain for graduates.

"In the short-term, because we are in this transition period, and we're having to restructure some of the workforce around the country, whether it's at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida or the Johnson Space Center in Houston or other NASA centers, there's a little bit of uncertainty involved," he said.

Sarafin did suggest that initial reports are often more severe than the actual outcomes.

NASA said it's possible the Kennedy Space Center could see an 80 percent employment cut by 2011.