Roamy here. Yesterday, XBradTC sent me this link and asked what I thought. We need something to replace the Space Shuttle; I really don’t want to rely on the Russians any longer than we have to. I have to agree that Boeing and SpaceX are good choices for a manned spacecraft, based on prior experience and launch readiness. I had not heard of either Sierra Nevada or Blue Origin, but look how much SpaceX has accomplished in less than 9 years.
This also made me wonder where Lockheed Martin’s Orion spacecraft is in all this. Looks like there are some cuts, but Orion is still being developed as a deep-space exploration vehicle, rather than simply a ferry to the International Space Station. That means more radiation-resistant materials and a longer duration design than the CCDev2 vehicles.
And just because I like putting pictures in posts…
Wait wait wait… Not Orion Orion, right? This is some other Orion?
This Orion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_(spacecraft)
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/constellation/orion/index.html