Prices, part of what NASA calls its development program commercial crew, are a gamble, pushed by the administration of Obama, that commercial companies can get people to and from orbit faster and cheaper.
Philip McAlister, acting Director of the program, said NASA has received 22 proposals and requested additional information on 8 of them before deciding on the winners.
Space Exploration Technologies Corporation, or SpaceX, of Hawthorne, Calif., which already has a contract to transport goods to the International Space Station, receive $ 75 million toward the strengthening of its Falcon 9 rocket and capsule of Dragon suitable for passengers. SpaceX had two launches of its Falcon 9 successful last year, the second with an empty Dragon put in orbit the planet successfully before jumping capsule parachuting to Earth.
The Corporation of the Sierra Nevada of Louisville, Colorado, will receive the $ 80 million for his design of plan of small space and Boeing will receive 92.3 million for a design of the capsule. Blue origin, a quiet, enigmatic company started by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, will receive $ 22 million to work on his design of the capsule.
For each of the companies, the money will fund a year of work from may, and companies will be paid that they meet the steps described in their proposals.
An alternate winner - even if NASA it has not given money, may be the United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Except for the SpaceX, other companies are in need of a rocket to fly their spacecraft and rocket Atlas V of the alliance is a likely choice.
NASA also adopted on a proposal of Alliant Techsystems Inc. to develop a commercial version of the Ares I rocket, which combines said would cost much less than a V. Atlas
This second round of prices for the commercial development of crew is the NASA far greater step by breaking away from its previous practice of development and exploitation of its own spacecraft like the space shuttle and before that the rocket Saturn V behemoth.
After the shuttles are retired this year, the United States will have to rely on the Russians, at a cost of over 50 million dollars per seat, to make the orbit NASA astronauts.
Mr. McAlister said that NASA had designed commercial providers begin to fly astronauts to the International Space Station in the"middle of the Decade", but that depended on future funding from NASA and businesses achieve their technical goals.
"We are going we hope to make much progress over the next year, so we can achieve this as soon as possible", said Mr. McAlister.
In the next phase, NASA is to hold a competition to provide transport of crew services, which will be open to all companies, not only those who have received money in the current cycle. NASA is working on the details of how competition could be implemented.
"The strategy is still in development," said Mr. McAlister.
NASA has developed its own subsequent rocket for shuttle, the Ares I, as part of an ambitious program to return astronauts to the moon. But the Obama administration decided that the effort cost too much and moved to cancel the Ares I last year. Instead, he wanted to spend $ 6 billion over five years to fund the efforts of the commercial team.
Last year, NASA has awarded its first round of financing for development of the commercial team $ 50 million. In his application for the next fiscal year budget, President Obama asked for $ 850 million.
But many members of Congress remain skeptical about the approach of the commercial team. While a detailed plan for priorities for NASA over the next three years, passed last year includes money for commercial crew, it also includes money for NASA develop a larger capsule and a rocket big for missions beyond low Earth orbit. Congress also wanted the NASA rocket and capsule as a backup in case the commercial efforts failed.
"Even if I know that commercial companies may eventually become successful," Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, said at a hearing last week, "I do not think that the information available justifies a large investment of Federal dollars this year for commercial vehicles."
With tight budgets, it is unclear how NASA can do all of what has been asked to do so.
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