Boeing Develops Commercial Spaceship

Boeing is working on a new project that will advance the technology needed to build a system for commercial space travel. With an $18 million grant from NASA, Boeing hopes a new space capsule will be able to replace NASA’s current fleet of space shuttles that are approaching retirement. The new conical design, CST-100, will resemble Apollo and Orion. It is being designed for short missions to the International Space Station, not for protracted periods of time in space. As well as NASA, Boeing is working with Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace, which is developing space habitats in hopes of opening a commercial space station in 2013. “I think one of the big challenges for Boeing, in particular, is to try to do things quicker and less expensive, said Keith Reiley, Boeing's commercial crew development program manager. “We learned a lot from Bigelow on how to do that.” Bigelow Aerospace founder Robert Bigelow owns the Budget Suites of America chain of hotels.