Wednesday, September 17, 2014

Texas Gets Boost From NASA Space Taxi Effort

NASA announced Tuesday that it has selected two companies--Boeing, and SpaceX--to deliver astronauts to space from U.S. soil. The move will help bolster the space industry in Texas, where both SpaceX and Boeing partner Blue Origin have been conducting testing and launches. According to NASA, it has awarded $2.6 billion to SpaceX, and $4.2 billion to Boeing to help provide rides to space for its astronauts, part of a move to end the nation's sole reliance on Russia for delivering astronauts to space by 2017. SpaceX recently selected Texas for a new, commercial rocket launch facility, and one of Boeing's key partners in its astronaut delivery efforts is Blue Origin has a test site in West Texas where it is developing reusable launch vehicles. SpaceX is led by technology mogul Elon Musk; Blue Origin is backed by Amazon.com's Jeff Bezos.