NASA promised Monday what amounts to a $ 270 million deposit on the space shuttle future agency post, four companies of the burden in private space flight post are to provide financial support.

This is the second--and much larger--round of funding in NASA's commercial crew development (CCDev) program, which to drive efforts by private companies for the development of viable human spaceflight capabilities, such as the decades-long era of the space shuttle comes to an end.

"The next vehicle to carry American flag our astronauts in space is going to be a U.S. commercial provider," said Ed Mango, NASA's commercial crew program manager. "The partnership with industry is forming NASA will support the development of multiple American future systems that can provide access to low-Earth orbit."

The grants include:

Blue origin, from Kent, Washington, 22 million dollars for orbital commercial aerospace vehicle design and development, including the pusher escape system testing and motor.

sierra nevada Corp. of Louisville, Colorado, that $ 80 million to mature the dream Chaser system receives, focused on several spacecraft.

SpaceX from Hawthorne, California, who flew the Dragon capsule to orbit and restored it with success last year, 75 million dollars for different items.

The Boeing Company of Houston, Texas, whose team includes Bigelow Aerospace, which 92.3 million dollars for a variety of items.

The varying amounts of the prizes are not indicative of their merit, NASA warned. Indeed, the companies is awarded are not all competing to build an end-to-end spacecraft; Some launchers are building, while others will be based on missiles, the United Launch Alliance to enter their spacecraft to heaven.

Indeed, SpaceX (and Orbital Sciences Corp) have separate agreements with NASA to cargo supply flights to the space station after the retirement of the shuttle.

Space efforts of these companies are not only funded by taxpayer dollars, of course; each company is investing his own money. NASA awards grant only when specific milestones are met, Eric Anderson, President of the commercial aerospace Federation explained.

"These companies are investing their own money in addition to NASA's money to add even more investments in the definitive system," he explained in a statement congratulating the winners. "Every taxpayer dollars go further."

Of all the companies is the mysterious blue origin, founded by Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com fame, the least known. NASA selected the company for the Pusher escape system, a launch abort system, but the space agency also said that the company was working on a capsule design that has seen little exposure of the public.

NASA spent $ 50 million on the CCDev program in 2009 and plans to invest an additional $ 850 million next year in the next phase of the programme, CCDev 3.

The Agency hopes that "paying products" by mid decade.

"Mid-decade is an important decade that we are going to try to go to," said Mango, pointing out that obtaining a vehicle State certification, profiling and numerous security checks to fly.

"We're working as fast as we, within the limits of safe space flight," Macalaster added. ' We are not around, we're going to hopefully make a lot of progress in the coming years, so we can get there as soon as we can.

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