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NASA picks underdogs for station

1,000 jobs? Orbital Sciences, SpaceX win deals to ferry supplies

NASA is gambling up to $3.5 billion on two up-and-coming rocket companies in the hopes they can provide the international space station with food and supplies after the space shuttle's planned retirement in 2010.

The deals with Orbital Sciences of Virginia and SpaceX of California, announced Tuesday, also could usher in a new age for the space industry. For the first time, NASA is asking aerospace companies to assume almost total control of a human-spaceflight mission -- rather than simply using them as contractors.

"This is a pretty monumental thing for us. It's the contracts we need to keep the space station flying," said Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for space operations.

Neither company would ferry astronauts to the station, but each would be responsible for restocking the space station with experiments and provisions. Orbital Sciences would get up to $1.9 billion for eight flights, starting in 2011. SpaceX would get up to $1.6 billion for 12 flights starting in 2010.

"This is the first time that NASA has ever bought a commercial service as a substantial element of a human-spaceflight program," said James Muncy, a space-policy consultant based out of Virginia.

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Turmoil at NASA

NASA's new business partners will be wrestling with uncertainty at the agency. For years, NASA has planned to retire the shuttle by 2010 to make room for the Constellation program, a new system of rockets and capsules that aim to return Americans to the moon by 2020.

But Constellation has been beset by financial and technical problems and may not be ready for its first planned flight in 2015. This concern, coupled with worries about maintaining the space station, has prompted some members of Congress to discuss extending the shuttle era.

If that happens, then these two contracts could become less valuable to NASA, as the agency would have the option of using the shuttle -- known as NASA's tractor-trailer for its huge payload -- to ferry supplies to the station.

Previously, NASA Administrator Michael Griffin has said more shuttle flights would undermine the need for commercial resupply efforts, which so far have been funded by NASA through a research program called Commercial Orbital Transportation Services, or COTS.

"The space station is the customer for COTS. . . . If I continue flying the shuttle, I don't have a commercial market," Griffin told the Orlando Sentinel in September.

Gerstenmaier said Tuesday that there would be plenty of work for the two companies, even with more shuttle flights.

NASA's future remains unclear as aides to President-elect Barack Obama pepper the agency with questions about the shuttle, Constellation and the future of human spaceflight. On the campaign trail, Obama discussed giving NASA an additional $2 billion, but that was before the economic meltdown.

He is in favor of continuing the human-spaceflight program but has been vague about how to do so, remaining open to the possibility of more shuttle flights.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/space/orl-nasa2408dec24,0,4961131.
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