NASA Funds Private Spacecraft Developers

On Monday April 18, 2010, NASA awarded almost $270 million to four private US companies to develop spacecraft that will ferry astronauts to and from the International Space Station after the Space Shuttle is retired.

The Space Shuttle is scheduled to make two more flights to the ISS. After that, Russia will be the only country providing transport to and from the space station until the United States or other countries develop new spacecraft for this purpose.

NASA awarded $92.3 million to Boeing Company, $80 million to Sierra Nevada Corporation, $75 million to Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and $22 million to Blue Origin during the second round of the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) program.

The first round of the CCDev program took place in 2010, when NASA provided $50 million in federal stimulus funds to five private spacecraft developers.

Twenty two private companies submitted proposals for the second round of funding.

Eight of these companies were invited to meet with NASA in February, and of those, only Boeing, Sierra Nevada, SpaceX and Blue Origin received awards.

NASA wants to encourage the private spaceflight market.

The agency hopes that it will save money by transferring responsibility for transportation to and from the ISS from the public to the private sector, and that these savings can be used to pay for more deep space exploration.

NASA has allocated more than $3 billion to be spent in 2011 toward the development of a heavy-lift rocket and the Orion capsule, which will be used to transport astronauts into deep space.

Blue Origin, a Kent, Washington based-company that was established by Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, is working on a spacecraft known as the New Shephard.

SpaceX is working on its Dragon spaceship, which has already completed one successful test flight.

On April 25, Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, told the Wall Street Journal that SpaceX plans to put a human being on Mars within the next twenty years.

Sierra Nevada is developing  a craft that resembles a small Space Shuttle orbiter, and is called the Dream Chaser, while Boeing is working on its CST-100 capsule, which looks like a small version of the Apollo Command Module.

The companies which failed to receive awards were United Launch Alliance, Orbital Sciences Corporation, ATK and Excalibur Almaz.

United Launch Alliance is a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Excalibur Almaz is a space tourism company based in the Isle of Man. It has purchased two Russian space stations as well as four Russian space capsules and plans to refurbish them.

The company hopes to be able to bring tourists to the Moon by 2015.