NASA To Begin Commercial Spaceflights Within 5 Years Under CCiCap Initiative

Under the Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) initiative, NASA has made a deal with the three companies that promises to launch commercial manned spacecrafts  within next five years. The NASA administration has invested $212.5 million in Sierra Nevada Corporation, $440 million in Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) and $460 million in The Boeing Company. With this move, NASA will speed-up the entire design and development process of building commercial spacecrafts by outsourcing it to these companies and in-turn create high-paying jobs in Florida and across the country.

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NASA Commercial Crew Program Manager Ed Mango discusses the agency's new Commercial Crew Integrated Capability (CCiCap) partnerships from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Kennedy's Director Bob Cabana, left, and NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden also spoke about the CCiCap initiative during Friday's news conference.

So, we will soon see NASA providing us with safe, cost-effective and reliable flights taking off from the International Space Station and traveling across the Low Earth Orbit. Within the next two years these companies will develop and test their integrated designs and make them ready for crewed orbital demonstration missions.

On the other hand, NASA is simultaneously working on a 'crew capsule' called the Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle (MPCV) and a heavy-lift rocket under the name Space Launch System (SLS) that promises to take us beyond the low Earth orbit across the solar system. We are already getting goosebumps at the thought.