NASA picks 3 private firms to develop space taxis

In article 449c8a00-63c6-4aa7-a670-054037730ec5
@r2g2000pbn.googlegroups.com, says...

"NASA picked three aerospace companies Friday to build small
rocketships to take astronauts to the International Space Station.

This is the third phase of NASA's efforts to get private space
companies to take over the job of the now-retired space shuttle.
The companies will share more than $1.1 billion. Two of the
ships are capsules like in the Apollo era and the third is closer
in design to the space shuttle."

See:

http://money.msn.com/business-news/a...03&id=15412924

From the above article:
"The three companies are the Boeing Co. of Houston, Space Exploration
Technologies, called SpaceX, of Hawthorne, Calif., and Sierra Nevada
Corp. of Louisville, Colo."

I'm very happy ATK didn't make the cut. Liberty, especially the
capsule, is largely smoke and mirrors, IMHO. They would need to spend
*a lot* of money on the upper stage, capsule, launch escape system, and
etc. to make it all work together. Integration isn't a small task on a
large project like this.

Jeff
--
" Ares 1 is a prime example of the fact that NASA just can't get it
up anymore... and when they can, it doesn't stay up long. "
- tinker