http://news.yahoo.com/future-spaceflight-nasa-outsourcing-job-214312930.html
HOUSTON (AP) — How America gets people and stuff into orbit is about to be outsourced in an out-of-this-world way.
With the space shuttle's retirement Thursday, no longer will flying people and cargo up to the International Space Station be a government program where costs balloon. NASA is turning to private industry with fixed prices, contracts and profit margins. The space agency will be the customer, not the boss.
At least when it comes to the routine part of going to and from the space station, NASA hopes to rely on companies that will be the space version of FedEx and Yellow Cab.
The company that has been leading the commercial space race is hoping to launch its privately built rocket and capsule to the space station late this year. It won't carry astronauts, but if all goes well the unmanned ship will dock with the station and deliver food, water and clothing. And its major private cargo competitor may only be a month or two on its heels.
Getting people to orbit on a new American ship is a different story. Some ambitious companies hope to launch astronauts that way in three years, maybe four. Until then, the Russians will fly astronauts on a pay-for-play basis. Some space veterans like John Glenn, the first American in orbit, think five to 10 years is more realistic.
But two of the major players have surprised people before — the tech tycoons who founded PayPal and Amazon.
NASA has hired two companies — Space Exploration Technologies Corp. of Hawthorne, Calif., and Orbital Sciences of Dulles, Va. — to deliver 40 tons of supplies to the space station in 20 flights. The cost is $3.5 billion, about the same price per pound as it was during the space shuttle's 30-year history.
(Zim: I hope this works.)
(Actually, I was hoping Burt Rutan would 'supersize'
his 'Space Ship One' - to go all the way to the
International Space Station.)
Zim.
Mad Poet Strikes Again.
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