CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Companies involved in the next space race await the highly anticipated NASA announcement - expected any day - that will reveal who has won a high-stakes competition to fly astronauts to the International Space Station by 2017.
The decision will end America's reliance on Russia to ferry crews to and from the outpost.
The decision will have an immediate impact on Florida's Space Coast, home to NASA's Commercial Crew Program headquarters and the place from which all three known contenders - The Boeing Co., Sierra Nevada Corp. and SpaceX - will launch their missions, potentially bringing hundreds of new jobs.
In the long term, the one or more winning companies will try to grow a market for flights of non-NASA astronauts to low Earth orbit. They will pioneer a commercial role in human spaceflight that was considered a radical change when a White House panel endorsed it in 2009, and the Obama administration proposed it in 2010.
'It represents a new way of doing business,' said Wayne Hale, a former NASA shuttle program manager. 'The principles are to maintain safety and reliability that we're all familiar with in this risky enterprise, but also to do it at a much reduced cost.'
NASA projects spending $3.4 billion over the next five years to develop and fly the new commercial crew systems (SpaceX's Dragon capsule, Boeing's CST-100 capsule and Sierra Nevada's Dream Chaser mini-shuttle) - slightly more than the agency will spend this year alone on the development of an exploration rocket and spacecraft, or that it spent on the shuttle's last full year of operations in 2010.
How much money Congress will actually provide, starting next year, remains uncertain. So NASA's first major decision is how many vehicles to continue funding.
Most experts expect two winners. NASA has consistently said competition is key to producing the safest, most affordable systems, and it doesn't want to rely on a single provider in case that company runs into problems.
Boeing and SpaceX appear on first blush to be the favorites, having been awarded twice as much money as Sierra Nevada in the competition's previous round in 2012.
Each company must first prove it can meet NASA's voluminous safety requirements. Then, significantly, cost counts for about half of NASA's evaluation of the proposals.
Here are some of each company's strengths and weaknesses:
Boeing: An aerospace powerhouse that has participated in human spaceflight since its origins, Houston-based Boeing Space Exploration has received the most development money so far and may represent the safest pick politically.
'Everybody knows the name Boeing,' said former astronaut Leroy Chiao. 'They're a big aerospace company, they know how to build spacecraft.'
Artist concept of Boeing's CST-100 crew spacecraft in orbit. The CST-100 is based on heritage systems that stress proven technology over innovation, but it has never flown in space.(Photo: Boeing Co.)
Key to Boeing's pitch is its promise to assemble the CST-100 capsule in renovated former shuttle facilities at Kennedy Space Center and to base up to 550 employees here, probably adding the most local jobs.
The CST-100 is based on heritage systems that stress proven technology over innovation, but it has never flown in space. It would fly atop a United Launch Alliance's Atlas V rocket, which has launched nearly 50 times.
SpaceX: Its Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule already deliver cargo to the International Space Station, and the Falcon 9, now with 11 successful launches, is the most affordable rocket available.
SpaceX would launch crews from the space center's historic pad 39A, which it leased from NASA earlier this year, while the other two spacecraft would launch from the Atlas V pad next door at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.
SpaceX might find performing under a traditional NASA contract more difficult than the more flexible Space Act Agreements the program has utilized to date.
Founder and CEO Elon Musk is revered in business and technology circles, but his brash approach has rankled some in the aerospace establishment and Congress.
'I don't think SpaceX can be turned down, unless they find just a real major technical issue,' said Roger Handberg, a professor at the University of Central Florida. 'SpaceX is so publicly and politically potent right now.'
Sierra Nevada: The Dream Chaser offers the field's only alternative to an Apollo-like capsule, a winged vehicle that looks and works more like a shuttle, and thus appeals to many at NASA.
The lifting body design, evolved from one NASA started years ago, provides some advantages over capsules, such as lower G-forces during re-entry and flexibility to land on runways across the country.
'For the low Earth orbit job ... wings are perfect,' said John Curry, Dream Chaser co-program manager, during a recent presentation to the Canaveral chapter of the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association. 'Capsules are not the way to do it, in my opinion.'
Concept of Dream Chaser launching from Cape Canaveral, Fla. The Dream Chaser is the field's only alternative to an Apollo-like capsule, a winged vehicle that looks and works more like a shuttle.(Photo: Sierra Nevada Corp.)
The Dream Chaser also would lift off on an Atlas V. Sierra Nevada has already booked a November 2016 launch for an uncrewed orbital test flight.
The company's Colorado-based Space Systems division has built rocket engines, spacecraft components and satellites, but never an orbital spacecraft like Boeing and SpaceX have.
Boeing and Sierra Nevada share a disadvantage that seemingly helps SpaceX: their Atlas V rocket depends on a Russian main engine at a time when U.S.-Russian relations are deteriorating.
A Russian official's threat to stop providing the RD-180 engine for military launches seems less of a concern now, but SpaceX offers an option free of that uncertainty.
The upcoming decision is a big one for NASA and for many individuals such as Curry, who left NASA for a riskier opportunity to help lead a Dream Chaser team that he said could 'do something spectacular.'
He awaits the news confident Sierra Nevada has submitted a compelling spacecraft design.
'The design of the vehicle is the best possible design that we can bring forward, and from that, I have peace,' he said. 'I'll let the chips fall as they may.'
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