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cythrust
Research and Development
| Joined: | Fri Feb 27th, 2009 |
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| Posts: | 17 |
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Posted: Tue May 12th, 2009 11:15 pm |
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Last week, acting NASA Administrator Chris Scolese told a congressional subcommittee that the agency plans to give $150 million in stimulus-package money to private companies that design, build and service their own rockets and crew capsules..
On Thursday, the White House ordered a top-to-bottom review of the entire manned space program, one that will be led by former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, long considered a friend of private space ventures.
Scolese said that $80 million of the stimulus money will be awarded to the company that demonstrates the best "crewed launch demo" — a prototype, based on existing cargo-capsule designs, modified for humans. The agency was careful to note that the competition will be an open one.
Two well-positioned spaceflight companies, SpaceX and Orbital Sciences, are seen as the leading contenders. Each already has a full line of rockets and cargo capsules ready to go, and each company's capsules can be converted to transport astronauts.
The two leading contractors are building their launch vehicles from scratch. Their designs emphasize very efficient business models and low manufacturing costs. And they operate with at most a few dozen employees at their launch sites, as opposed to the space shuttle program's standing army of almost 15,000 workers.
REF:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,519609,00.html
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