Spaceships Galore! Commercial Space Race to Orbit Heating Up

A new space race is on among commercial companies hoping to snag a lucrative contract to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station. Four companies that are hoping to fill that role presented their spaceship designs Oct. 21 the 2010 International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in Las Cruces, N.M. The spaceships are also aiming to fly tourists to orbit, and to service commercial space stations such as those under development by Bigelow Aerospace, once they are built.

Lockheed Martin's Orion capsule

This spacecraft under development by Lockheed Martin revived under the new NASA vision as an emergency lifeboat that astronauts could ride home if they needed to escape from the International Space Station.Lockheed is hoping to develop the craft further to carry crews up to space, as well as down.

Dragon: SpaceX's gumdrop spaceship

Space Exploration Technologies has designed not only its own gumdrop-shaped space capsule, but a rocket to fly it on. The company's Falcon 9 booster launched successfully on its first flight test in June 2010. The Dragon capsule, designed to carry either crew or cargo to low-Earth orbit, is due to make its debut spaceflight on the Falcon 9 as early as next month.

Boeing's CST-100 space capsule

This entry from Boeing into the commercial space transportation fray is a capsule larger than NASA's Apollo spacecraft but smaller than Orion. Called the Crew Space Transportation 100, or CST-100, the capsule could potentially launch aboard a ULA Atlas 5 or Delta 4 rocket, or even one of SpaceX's Falcon 9s. It would likely lift off from New Mexico's White Sands Missile Range, with Edwards Air Force Base in California as a backup site.

Dream Chaser: A new space plane

This space plane design under development by the Sierra Nevada Corporation in Centennial, Colo., is expected to fly atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket, which is an expendable launch vehicle. The spaceship will carry up to seven people to the International Space Station, and could even be adapted to carry cargo or to service satellites in space.