On Tuesday, NASA announced $50 million in grants to companies working on spacecraft and other hardware for use in launching humans into space. The money, drawn from the $1 billion in government stimulus funds NASA received in 2009, will help pay for the following five projects.
Blue Origin, an aerospace company based in Kent, Washington, and led by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos, is working on a rocket-propelled vehicle called New Shepard to carry people and microgravity experiments on suborbital trips into space.
The Houston-based Space Exploration division of aerospace giant Boeing will receive $18 million to help it develop a crew capsule it hopes will one day carry NASA astronauts into space.
Paragon Space Development, a small company that builds spacecraft hardware based in Tucson, Arizona, will receive $1.4 million to help it develop a life support system that scrubs out carbon dioxide and replenishes oxygen in the air.
Sierra Nevada Corporation, an electronics and engineering firm based in Sparks, Nevada, will receive $20 million dollars to help its SpaceDev subsidiary develop a spacecraft called Dream Chaser.
United Launch Alliance, a joint venture by aerospace titans Lockheed Martin and Boeing, sells Atlas 5 and Delta 4 rockets. It hopes the rockets, which are currently used to send spacecraft into orbit, can be "man rated" to launch humans as well.