Three firms share $1.1 billion of NASA space taxi work

[Eugene]

Source: Reuters

Three firms share 1.1 billion of NASA space taxi work

By Irene and Klotz
PASADENA, California | Fri Aug 3, 2012 10:01am EDT

(Reuters) - NASA will pay more than $1 billion over the next 21 months to three companies to develop commercial spaceships capable of flying astronauts to the International Space Station, the agency said Friday.

The lion's share of the $1.1 billion allotted for the next phase of NASA's so-called "Commercial Crew" program will be split between Boeing and Space Exploration Technologies, a privately held firm run by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk.

Boeing will receive $460 million to continue developing its CST-100 capsule, which is intended to fly aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket. ULA is a partnership of Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, was awarded $440 million to upgrade its Dragon cargo capsule, which flies on the firm's Falcon 9 rocket, to carry people.

[font size=1]-snip-[/font]

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/03/us-space-spaceships-idUSBRE8720SC20120803

[Thor_MN]

1. And if they fail to deliver?

[friendly_iconoclast]

2. Considering it's less than the price of two Shuttle missions, I'd say it's worth the gamble.

And SpaceX has gotten the Dragon to work in its cargo version, so it's not that risky...

[Thor_MN]

3. Manned vs. cargo?

Magnitudes of difference in terms of complexity.

I will be thrilled if they get one successful launch out of that money. But I would bet that each launch will cost more per pound to orbit. The success rate of private enterprise reducing costs over government run operations is slim. When a healthy (often obscene) profit needs to built into the costs, private usually costs more.