New Nasa Shuttle Competition

[Plenoptic 0]

There currently is two companies that are competing for the design of the new NASA space shuttle which are Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman and Boeing Company. They each are set to have proposals for March. Lockheed Martin picks Florida as the place to build the rocket they have in mind. If they win this deal it all depends on whether the legislation will approve a $45.5 million dollar incentives package. The U.S is planning on decommissioning the old rockets, used since 1981, in 2008 and ending them completely in 2010. The package from Florida includes $35 million for facilities upgrades/construction and 10.5 for worker training. This would add 350 more jobs to local economy but will still fall from the 14,500 positions for shuttle launch and to operate the space center. NASA wants to build a Crew Exploration Vehicle to fly first to the space station and then to the moon and some for Mars voyages. The vehicle will be launched on new rockets and disposable main engines. This would be great for NASA. We will have a new, and hopefully safer way to travel through space. We hopefully won?t have any more problems with the foam insulation on the side of the space craft falling out. It would probably be faster and save some of our resources as well. I can?t wait to see plans of these vehicles once the competition is over.

[Albus Dumbledore 0]

yeah, goodie, more goverment money down the drain >_< lol neways, i think its cool that we might have a safer way for us to travel through space! and the foam insilating was crazy in the first place but i think it was just recently they were encountering the probelm with them (past 5-8 years) but maybe it will have us be able to go farther into space in a shorter time or somthing along the lines of that but its good to hear tax payers money is going somewhere even though i dont pay taxes

[catfish 0]

yes well we all know how well the last shuttle project turned out...in anycase not much will ever get done with regards to space until the administration changes to one with a more ambitious mindset. We made it to the moon in under ten years after jfk made that speech, and now they are talking about we "might" be back in 15-20? Its a freakin' joke. They need to start putting their money where their mouth is and actually get the job done instead of bickering over whether this piece of foam is 5grams too heavy and might damage the craft on takeoff. Our space program is trueling in a horrific state. Politicians keep promising the moon for their own ends but never give the blank check that got us to the moon. (and will be needed to do much of anything anytime soon, with regards to manned research.)Aside from money, the other thing that really irks me about the space program is how squemish they are. That they are so unwilling to take a insignifigant risk that they will ground all the shuttles, dispite the millions on millions of equipment rotting on the iss and the millions more rotting on the ground that needs to be brought up there. The space shuttle flew dozens of times without any damage by foam, while risks should be minimized, minimizing them should not take precedent over the mission./end rant