A three-way race to build a commercially operated spaceship to shuttle astronauts -- and other paying customers -- to and from low-Earth orbit is close the finish line, with NASA aiming to award development and flight service contracts as early as next week. <\/p>\n
So far, two companies favoring capsule designs -- Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX -- have won the lions share of NASAs Commercial Crew program funds. The effort, which began in 2010, is intended to provide a U.S. alternative for flying crews to the International Space Station, which orbits about 260 miles above Earth. <\/p>\n
Since NASA retired the space shuttles in 2011, the only human transportation system flying to the station is owned by Russia, which charges about $70 million per person for rides on its Soyuz capsules. NASA hopes to change that before the end of 2017. <\/p>\n
NEWS: Space Taxi, Please! NASA Investing $1.1 Bln <\/p>\n
Along with Boeing and SpaceX, NASA has been funding space taxi design work at a third company, Colorado-based Sierra Nevada Corp., though its contracts have been about half of what Boeing and SpaceX received. <\/p>\n
Sierra Nevada eschewed the capsule design in favor of a small winged spaceplane called Dream Chaser, which resembles a miniature space shuttle. The company has signed partnership agreements with more than 30 companies, nine universities, nine NASA field centers and three international space agencies, a strategy that could provide some flexibility if it is not selected for additional NASA funding. <\/p>\n
Weve always looked at this as a system, with the space station being a mission. There are other missions that we are looking at. Having this wide group of companies allows us to look at construction, repair missions, the ability to do short- and long-duration science missions independent of the space station, Mark Sirangelo, Sierra Nevada Space Systems president, told Discovery News. <\/p>\n
For us, receiving hundreds of millions of dollars less at the start of the competition put us at a schedule disadvantage -- we couldnt do as many things -- but it made us be a lot more creative in how we were going to manage the last two years, Sirangelo said. <\/p>\n
PHOTOS: Dragon's Bounty: SpaceX Mission Complete <\/p>\n
Showing that you can manage to a very tight budget is a pretty big thing, he added. <\/p>\n
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Race to Build NASA Space Taxi Down to the Wire<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A three-way race to build a commercially operated spaceship to shuttle astronauts -- and other paying customers -- to and from low-Earth orbit is close the finish line, with NASA aiming to award development and flight service contracts as early as next week. So far, two companies favoring capsule designs -- Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX -- have won the lions share of NASAs Commercial Crew program funds. The effort, which began in 2010, is intended to provide a U.S Continue reading