NASA begins its next step in human spaceflight with Thursday's announcement of a contractor to design and build spaceships to fly to the moon.
Lockheed Martin and a partnership of Northrop Grumman and Boeing are vying for the work, estimated to be worth more than $18 billion over the next decade.
“We’re looking forward to getting that contractor on board with us as we continue our journey on into exploration,” project manager Skip Hatfield said.
The new spaceships, named Orion, will replace the space agency’s three remaining space shuttles, which are to be retired in 2010 upon completion of the half-built International Space Station.
After two deadly shuttle accidents, NASA is giving up on winged, reusable vehicles and returning to the capsule-style spaceships that first carried Americans into orbit and later landed them on the moon. Similar vessels are used by Russia and China.
The contract, to be announced at a 4 p.m. ET news conference in Washington, covers the design, development, production and testing of engineering models and up to four operational vehicles.
The spaceships are slated for test flights within six to eight years. Two versions are planned, one to carry astronauts, the other for cargo.
Initially, Orion spacecraft will fly to the space station, supplementing the Russian Soyuz spacecraft as emergency escape ships and ferrying crews to and from the outpost.
By 2020, NASA intends to fly astronauts to the moon for the first time since the final Apollo mission in 1972, an effort expected to cost more than $100 billion. After building an outpost on the moon, the plan is to send astronauts to explore Mars.
Shifting beyond Earth orbit
The program, called Project Constellation, shifts U.S. human spaceflight beyond research and satellite-delivery missions in low-Earth orbit carried out by the shuttles.
It was implemented in the wake of 2003's Columbia shuttle disaster and in response to sharply worded advice from accident investigators calling for recertification of the remaining space shuttles, or their retirement by 2010.
Few questioned President Bush’s decision to end the shuttle program. Even die-hard Mars exploration enthusiasts eventually stopped complaining about being waylaid by precursor lunar excursions.
But critics and government advisers have raised questions, particularly over the multibillion-dollar award to build spaceships before technical and financial risks are fully understood.
Questions about cost
In a Government Accountability Office report released last month, analysts suggested that NASA limit the Orion contract to “activities needed to successfully complete the preliminary design review.”
“NASA should lessen the government’s obligation to the project at such an early stage when realistic cost estimates have yet to be established and requirements are not fully defined,” GAO official Allen Li said to the heads of a congressional oversight committee.
Among the uncertainties, for example, is whether start-up companies might take over space station crew and cargo transportation services at lower cost. Earlier this month, NASA awarded $500 million to two companies to develop and test fly privately developed space vehicles in hopes of saving money on space station transport.
But with just two lunar missions per year planned, commercial transports to the station would directly compete for business with whichever firm is selected to build NASA’s next-generation spaceships.
