FleaPlus's Journal: Rejected: NASA and Commercial Space Transportation

At a recent talk, Michael Griffin outlined NASA's plans for helping to generate a robust and competitive commercial market in orbital spaceflight. The speech and Q&A transcripts from the talk are available. In a move reminiscent of the US government kickstarting the early airline industry by purchasing airmail services, NASA plans on supplementing government-derived transport by purchasing cargo delivery services to the International Space Station from commercial providers, followed by crew transportation after the systems have proven themselves. Unlike traditional government contracts, sellers wouldn't see a profit before the services are delivered and the emphasis will be on actual performance instead of process and specifications. Aviation Week has some commentary on the announcement.

That's great, but...

[UnapprovedThought]

Who, if anyone, can provide transport services to the ISS at this point, besides of course, governmental or quasi-governmental space agencies?

Re:That's great, but...

[FleaPlus]

I suspect SpaceX at least should be capable of doing so in a year or two. However, I believe Griffin is primarily planning, at least on the short term, on targetting the more established companies like Boeing, LockMart, etc. It's basically going to be a different (and hopefully much better way) of contracting with them.