Rockwell Launches an Endeavor . . .

Its decision to sell its defense and aerospace businesses doesn’t mean that Rockwell International Corp. is no longer contemplating the future. The projects aren’t as glamorous as developing the nation’s next generation of spaceships, but they’re there.

Just this week, Rockwell and the federal government announced a cooperative agreement to develop a high-power superconducting electric motor that could shave hundreds of millions of dollars a year from industrial energy costs.

Big industrial motors--the kind that power sheet metal presses, overhead cranes in steel mills and most other kinds of machinery--use about 25% of all the electricity produced in the U.S., according to the federal Department of Energy. Industrial users pay about $55 billion a year for that power.

A superconducting motor uses wiring made of special alloys and cooled with liquid nitrogen to eliminate electrical resistance, which causes a portion of the power conducted through normal wiring to be lost. Thus, a superconducting motor can generate a lot more power from a lot less electricity than a standard motor of the same size.

The Energy Department and an industry group led by Rockwell’s Reliance Electric unit in Cleveland each are spending $10.25 million on development of the superconducting motor. Seal Beach-based Rockwell figures the project will generate about 700 new jobs at various research and development facilities in Ohio, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts by Reliance and its partners in the venture.

. . . and It’s Not Bound for Mars A Rockwell spokesman says there’s no regret, despite the recent flurry of interest in things Martian, over the decision to sell the company’s aerospace businesses to Boeing.

The Mars thing, of course, is the recent discovery of a single-celled organism on a meteor fragment that suggests that there might have been some form of life on Mars tens of millions of years ago. The discovery has spurred talk of increased space exploration.

But industry analysts say there is no sign that Congress, still struggling with the concept of a balanced budget, is going to suddenly find billions more for space. And even if the money did come, Rockwell’s space business concentrates on the shuttle and on rocket engines and isn’t the kind that would benefit much from federal expenditures on deep-space exploration. “This whole Mars issue is very interesting to people, but it is not much from an industry point of view,” said John Kutler, president of Quarterdeck Investment Partners, a Century City aerospace and defense financing specialist. “It is not likely to change government spending.”

Besides, Rockwell is getting $3.2 billion for the defense and aerospace units and emerges from the sale as a debt-free company with major interests in semiconductors, telecommunications, automation and automotive products.