COULD the private space pioneer Burt Rutan end up building the successor to the space shuttle? Rutan, who last month won the $10 million X prize for flying the first private rocket into space, is part of a consortium competing to build a prototype of the vehicle. And last week, their odds of winning improved dramatically.
In September, NASA awarded $3 million contracts to eight groups, including Rutan鈥檚, to plan a new 鈥渃rew exploration vehicle鈥� for future trips to the moon and Mars. Later next year, NASA plans to award contracts to build two prototypes. Following a 鈥渇ly-off鈥� in 2008, one of these will be picked for the moon-Mars mission.
鈥淎fter a fly-off in 2008, one of the prototypes will be picked for the moon-Mars mission鈥�
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But last week it emerged that few of the entrants actually want the job. The American aerospace companies Northrop Grumman and Orbital Sciences have both said they would like to take part, but only as subcontractors. Meanwhile, two other entrants 鈥� the space technology companies Draper Laboratory and Schafer Corporation 鈥� have never manufactured space vehicles and seem unlikely to bid.
What remains is a curious mix: the established aerospace giants Boeing and Lockheed Martin and two relative unknowns, a small Seattle-based company called Andrews Space, and the consortium Transformational Space, based in Reston, Virginia, which includes Rutan and his company, Scaled Composites.
NASA is under pressure to foster new companies and new ideas, and could use the fly-off to pitch an established spacecraft manufacturer against one of the newcomers.
