COLORADO SPRINGS — The opportunity for government space collaborations with commercial companies is greater now than ever with President Barack Obama’s redirection of NASA’s budget.
The president’s proposal — on which he is expected to give more detail today — charges NASA to do more with less. It also provides NASA with $6 billion over five years to encourage companies to build private spacecraft, vastly increasing the role of commercial space industries in future space exploration, panelists at the National Space Symposium said Wednesday.
“There is a healthy market developing,” said Mike Hamel, a senior vice president with Orbital Sciences Corp., a Virginia company that is developing the Taurus II rocket and the Cygnus cargo capsule.
Private companies “won’t solve all the problems, but they can offer many, many solutions,” Hamel said. “Government can rely on the commercial sector to deliver the payloads and the goods.”
The day when commercial cargo ships supply the international space station will begin within a few years after the aging space-shuttle fleet is retired at the end of this year.
California-based SpaceX won a $1.6 billion contract to provide the supply services with its Falcon rocket and Dragon capsule. Estimates indicate SpaceX will begin flights in 2014. Until then, the Russians will provide the service.
By using a federal award, SpaceX has been able to develop the system, which president Gwynne Shotwell said “allows government to do what’s really hard. We get to low Earth orbit, and NASA can focus on getting to Mars and asteroids.”
Other contenders for building private spacecraft include Lockheed Martin Space Systems, based in southern Jefferson County, and Boeing.
The two aerospace giants have built many of the nation’s spacecraft and rockets. Several years ago, they formed a joint venture — United Launch Alliance of Centennial — to take over the launching of its Delta and Atlas rockets.
Those rockets are used by private and military customers to launch “all kinds of sensitive things,” ULA spokesman Chris Chavez said. But the rockets aren’t rated for taking humans aloft yet.
In February, the administration announced that ULA would receive $6.7 million and Sierra Nevada Corp. of Louisville would receive $20 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to support human-spaceflight developments.
Ann Schrader: 303-954-1967 or aschrader@denverpost.com
