NASA Commercial Funding Ignition

We are seeing the emergence of aspace contracting business similar to that which produced the modern armamentsindustry.  The real space race is now onwith large states also entering the fray and pushing various designs.  Last week we saw the first heavy lift designshow up also.

I would like to see a creditableplan for the establishment of a proper space platform consisting of a hub tohandle traffic and a spinning shell able to produce sufficient acceleration toallow actual work to be done.  Such ashell can start life as a balloon and be built up easily using structuralfoams.

It now appears that we are goingto 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 onnew spaceships capable of ferrying astronauts into orbit. The money isgoing to Blue Origin, the Boeing Co., Sierra NevadaCorp. and SpaceX.

The awards, ranging from $22 million to $92.3 million, are aimed atsupporting the development of private-sector space transportation systems thatwill help fill the gap left by this year's expected retirement of thespace shuttle fleet. This is the second phase of the Commercial CrewDevelopment program, also known as CCDev2. Last year, $50million was awarded for the first phase of the program, and NASA isasking for another $850 million to cover a third phase.

Philip McAlister, acting director of NASA Headquarters' CommercialSpaceflight Development program, told journalists today during a teleconferencethat the $269.3 million in CCDev2 funding would be doled out as companiesachieved milestones laid out between now and May 2012. It will take more timeand money, however, to get the private-sector spaceships intoservice.

"We are targeting the middle part of this decade to hopefully haveservices available for purchase," McAlister said.

Twenty-two proposals for CCDev2 funding were received, and after monthsof study, NASA picked these four as the winners:

Sierra Nevada Corp.

Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser craft approaches a spacestation port in this artist's concept.

• The Boeing Co. is getting $92.3 million for itsCST-100project, which would create a seven-passenger space capsule for travel toand from the International Space Station — or other orbital destinations suchas Bigelow Aerospace's inflatable space stations. The CST-100 effort alreadyreceived $18 million during the first CCDev phase.

• Sierra Nevada Corp. was allocated $80 million for its DreamChaser space plane, a seven-passenger craft designed to be launchedvertically on a rocket and land horizontally like an airplane. NASA paid Sierra Nevada $20 million for Dream Chaser developmentduring CCDev1. Among Sierra Nevada's manypartners in the project is VirginGalactic, which is involved in suborbital space tourism and couldeventually extend that business to low Earth orbit.

SpaceX

An artist's view shows the SpaceX Dragon coming in for a docking withthe International Space Station.

• SpaceX was selected to receive $75 million, to work on whatthe company said were "the final upgrades needed for the Falcon 9 rocketand Dragon spacecraft to carry astronauts." NASA said those upgrades wouldinclude development of a side-mounted launch abort system and the hardware foraccommodating crew in the Dragon capsule.

SpaceX is already receiving millions of dollars from NASA to build outthe Dragon as an unmanned cargo-carrying spaceship. In December, the companyconducted a fullysuccessful test launch of the Falcon 9, putting a Dragon intoorbit and bringing it back down for a Pacific splashdown. The California-basedcompany did not receive any money from the CCDev1 program.

Blue Origin

Blue Origin says it intends to build the orbital space capsule shown inthis artist's conception.

• Blue Origin, the somewhatsecretive space venture backed by Amazon.com billionaire JeffBezos, has been alloted $22 million to continue work on its crew spacecraft andits "pusher" launch abort system. The company received $3.7 millionfrom NASA during CCDev1.

Winners and losers

"This was a very competitive selection," McAlister said. One of thecompanies losing out was United Launch Alliance,which wants to offer the Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets as launch vehicles fortrips to the space station (and was awarded $6.7 million during CCDev1).

Another loser was ATK, which supplies the solid-fuel rocket boostersfor the space shuttle — and proposed building aLibertylaunch vehicle using elements of those boosters as well as anupper-stage core from Europe's Ariane 5rocket. NASA also passed up a proposal from United Space Alliance, theprime contractor for the space shuttle program, to keeptwo of the shuttles running as a commercial operation.

Today, McAlister declined to specify exactly why the four winningproposals were chosen over the others. "It was never one thing," hesaid. He said NASA officials considered how far along each company had come inits development program, how the federal money would acceleratedevelopment, how much internal funding each company was committing to itsproject, and how viable each company's business plan was.

He promised that NASA would release further details about the selectionprocess once the winners and the losers had been briefed and givenan opportunity to provide feedback.

Independent space consultant Charles Lurio told me that launch vehicleproviders such as United Launch Allianceshouldn't lose heart just yet. "I think ULA wins in any case," hesaid. "Three out of four [Boeing, Sierra Nevadaand Blue Origin] are looking for boosters, so ULA will definitely keep theirwork warm."

Ed Mango, program manager for the Commercial Crew Program at NASA'sKennedy Space Center, told reporters that the work covered underthe CCDev2 agreements would begin as soon as possible. "We're at thestarting gate, ready to go," he said. NASA officials emphasizedthat the slate would be wiped clean for future rounds offunding: Winning this time around would not guarantee additional supportlater, 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 hasalready worked out morethan a billion dollars' worth of agreements to transport U.S. astronautsto the space station on Russian Soyuz craft. Unmanned European, Russian andJapanese transports are capable of sending cargo to the station, and commercialU.S.spaceships such as SpaceX's Dragon could start ferrying cargo in the nextyear or two.

For the longer haul, NASA is just starting to look into the developmentof a heavy-lift rocket and multipurpose crew vehicle capable of going beyondEarth orbit. But those next, next-gen vehicles aren't expected to enterservice until 2016 or later, and they're likely to be significantly moreexpensive than the "space taxis" that are being supportedthrough the CCDev program. 

NASA Administrator Charles Bolden recently said that commercialspaceships would play an essentialrole in the agency's long-range plans — and he reiterated that view ina statement released today.

"We're committed to safely transporting U.S. astronauts on American-madespacecraft and ending the outsourcing of this work to foreigngovernments," Bolden said. "These agreements are significantmilestones in NASA's plans to take advantage of American ingenuity to get tolow-Earth orbit, so we can concentrate our resources on deep spaceexploration."

In today's news release, Mango said that "the next American-flaggedvehicle to carry our astronauts into space is going to be a U.S. commercial provider."

"The partnerships NASA is forming with industry will support thedevelopment of multiple American systems capable of providing future access tolow-Earth orbit," he said.

Do you agree or disagree with NASA's push for commercialization? Do youthink the traditional way of doing things, with NASA astronauts flying onspacecraft built and maintained exclusively for NASA, is still the way to go?... Or is "the traditional way of doing things" even sustainableanymore? Whatever your view, feel free to weigh in with your comments below.