Reuters
Friday, Aug 03, 2012
PASADENA - NASA will pay more than US$1 billion (S$1.37
billion) over the next 21 months to three companies to develop
commercial spaceships capable of flying astronauts to the International
Space Station, the agency said Friday.
The lion's share of the US$1.1 billion allotted for the next phase of
NASA's so-called "Commercial Crew" programme will be split between
Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies, a privately held firm run by
Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Boeing will receive US$460 million to continue developing its CST-100
capsule, which is intended to fly aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas
5 rocket. ULA is a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.
Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, was awarded US$440 million
to upgrade its Dragon cargo capsule, which flies on the firm's Falcon 9
rocket, to carry people.
In May, a Dragon capsule became the first privately owned spacecraft
to reach the station, a $100 billion outpost that flies 240 miles (386
kilometers) above Earth. The test flight was part of a related NASA
programme to hire commercial companies to fly cargo to the station.
Privately held Sierra Nevada Corp received a partial award of
US$212.5 million for work on its Dream Chaser, a winged vehicle that
resembles a miniature space shuttle which also launches on an Atlas 5
rocket.
All three firms are prior recipients of NASA space taxi development work.
Since the space shuttles were retired last year, NASA is dependent on
partners Russia, Europe and Japan to reach the station. Russia will
remain the sole entity capable of flying crew until US companies develop
systems, which NASA hopes will be within five years.
PS:
Space taxi, thats a new one.
Currently, its very expensive to go space, unless you are very rich.
So I guess I won't be able to use it in my lifetime.
So no high hopes for it.
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