RE: Boeing reveals commercial crew transport bid

Flightglobal:

Boeing is piling into a $50 million NASA competition to fill the crew transport gap left by the Space Shuttle fleet's 2010 retirement with a concept using......

Author: Rob Coppinger

Date: 24 September 2009

Read the full article

One begins to get the impression of : 1) A sense both of urgency and of being left behind in Manned space vis-a-vis potential competition. and 2) a determination not to lose "the lead"/monopoly in Space of NASA to commercial competitirs such as SPACE-X. I see that whereas before only SPACE X under COTS-D had a dual-purpose (Soyuz/Progress type) Spacecraft, now SPACE X' "rival/Competitor" Orbital Scences is modifying thir own ISS supply spacecraft for the manned transportaion role as well! This is despite neither having a specfic contract for same! VERY unusual! On the other hand rumblings from Congress and the Senate indicate a determination for NASA to retain its monopoly regardless of the delays and $-flavoured sucking sounds, entailed by doing so. I await the first "unauthorised" docking of a commercial spacecraft via an "unauthorised" launch with much anticipation! I'd be interested to know if Elon Musk was inspired by Robert Heinlein's "The Man that sold the Moon" short story....