We are seeing the emergence of a
space contracting business similar to that which produced the modern armaments
industry. The real space race is now on
with large states also entering the fray and pushing various designs. Last week we saw the first heavy lift design
show up also.
I would like to see a creditable
plan for the establishment of a proper space platform consisting of a hub to
handle traffic and a spinning shell able to produce sufficient acceleration to
allow actual work to be done. Such a
shell can start life as a balloon and be built up easily using structural
foams.
It now appears that we are going
to be getting a whole range of lift capacity to support such an effort.
NASA funds next-gen spaceships
By Alan Boyle
Last updated 10:15 p.m. ET:
NASA is awarding $269.3 million to four companies that plan to work on
new spaceships capable of ferrying astronauts into orbit. The money is
going to Blue Origin, the Boeing Co., Sierra Nevada
Corp. and SpaceX.
The awards, ranging from $22 million to $92.3 million, are aimed at
supporting the development of private-sector space transportation systems that
will help fill the gap left by this year's expected retirement of the
space shuttle fleet. This is the second phase of the Commercial Crew
Development program, also known as CCDev2. Last year, $50
million was awarded for the first phase of the program, and NASA is
asking for another $850 million to cover a third phase.
Philip McAlister, acting director of NASA Headquarters' Commercial
Spaceflight Development program, told journalists today during a teleconference
that the $269.3 million in CCDev2 funding would be doled out as companies
achieved milestones laid out between now and May 2012. It will take more time
and money, however, to get the private-sector spaceships into
service.
"We are targeting the middle part of this decade to hopefully have
services available for purchase," McAlister said.
Twenty-two proposals for CCDev2 funding were received, and after months
of study, NASA picked these four as the winners:
Sierra Nevada Corp.
• The Boeing Co. is getting $92.3 million for itsCST-100
project, which would create a seven-passenger space capsule for travel to
and from the International Space Station — or other orbital destinations such
as Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable space stations. The CST-100 effort already
received $18 million during the first CCDev phase.
• Sierra Nevada Corp. was allocated $80 million for its Dream
Chaser space plane, a seven-passenger craft designed to be launched
vertically on a rocket and land horizontally like an airplane. NASA paid Sierra Nevada $20 million for Dream Chaser development
during CCDev1. Among Sierra Nevada 's many
partners in the project is Virgin
Galactic, which is involved in suborbital space tourism and could
eventually extend that business to low Earth orbit.
SpaceX
An artist's view shows the SpaceX Dragon coming in for a docking with
the International Space Station.
• SpaceX was selected to receive $75 million, to work on what
the company said were "the final upgrades needed for the Falcon 9 rocket
and Dragon spacecraft to carry astronauts." NASA said those upgrades would
include development of a side-mounted launch abort system and the hardware for
accommodating crew in the Dragon capsule.
SpaceX is already receiving millions of dollars from NASA to build out
the Dragon as an unmanned cargo-carrying spaceship. In December, the company
conducted a fully
successful test launch of the Falcon 9, putting a Dragon into
orbit and bringing it back down for a Pacific splashdown. The California-based
company did not receive any money from the CCDev1 program.
Blue Origin
Blue Origin says it intends to build the orbital space capsule shown in
this artist's conception.
• Blue Origin, the somewhat
secretive space venture backed by Amazon.com billionaire Jeff
Bezos, has been alloted $22 million to continue work on its crew spacecraft and
its "pusher" launch abort system. The company received $3.7 million
from NASA during CCDev1.
Winners and losers
"This was a very competitive selection," McAlister said. One of the companies losing out was United Launch
Another loser was ATK, which supplies the solid-fuel rocket boosters
for the space shuttle — and proposed building aLiberty
launch vehicle using elements of those boosters as well as an
upper-stage core from Europe 's Ariane 5
rocket. NASA also passed up a proposal from United Space Alliance, the
prime contractor for the space shuttle program, to keep
two of the shuttles running as a commercial operation.
Today, McAlister declined to specify exactly why the four winning
proposals were chosen over the others. "It was never one thing," he
said. He said NASA officials considered how far along each company had come in
its development program, how the federal money would accelerate
development, how much internal funding each company was committing to its
project, and how viable each company's business plan was.
He promised that NASA would release further details about the selection
process once the winners and the losers had been briefed and given
an opportunity to provide feedback.
Independent space consultant Charles Lurio told me that launch vehicle
providers such as United Launch Alliance Sierra Nevada
and Blue Origin] are looking for boosters, so ULA will definitely keep their
work warm."
Ed Mango, program manager for the Commercial Crew Program at NASA's
Kennedy Space Center, told reporters that the work covered under
the CCDev2 agreements would begin as soon as possible. "We're at the
starting gate, ready to go," he said. NASA officials emphasized
that the slate would be wiped clean for future rounds of
funding: Winning this time around would not guarantee additional support
later, and today's losers could be the winners next time.
NASA's other options
NASA won't be left totally in the lurch when the shuttles retire: It has already worked out more than a billion dollars' worth of agreements to transport
For the longer haul, NASA is just starting to look into the development
of a heavy-lift rocket and multipurpose crew vehicle capable of going beyond
Earth orbit. But those next, next-gen vehicles aren't expected to enter
service until 2016 or later, and they're likely to be significantly more
expensive than the "space taxis" that are being supported
through the CCDev program.
NASA Administrator Charles Bolden recently said that commercial
spaceships would play an essential
role in the agency's long-range plans — and he reiterated that view in
a statement released today.
"We're committed to safely transporting U.S.
In today's news release, Mango said that "the next American-flagged
vehicle to carry our astronauts into space is going to be a U.S.
"The partnerships NASA is forming with industry will support the
development of multiple American systems capable of providing future access to
low-Earth orbit," he said.
Do you agree or disagree with NASA's push for commercialization? Do you
think the traditional way of doing things, with NASA astronauts flying on
spacecraft built and maintained exclusively for NASA, is still the way to go?
... Or is "the traditional way of doing things" even sustainable
anymore? Whatever your view, feel free to weigh in with your comments below.
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