It took help from the U.S. Postal Service to jump-start the nation’s commercial aviation industry in the late 1920s and early 1930s, the Daily Brezze reports citing a story by the Associated Press. NASA Administrator Michael Griffin thinks a little push from government could do the same for the commercial space industry in the next several years.
The U.S. space agency is sponsoring a competition in which winning companies will get $500 million in seed money to develop space vehicles that NASA will never design, build or own. Like a U-Haul truck rental, NASA instead will merely lease them on a per-trip basis for sending cargo and eventually crew to the International Space Station. The arrangement is unprecedented in the nearly 50-year history of the space agency, which traditionally oversees the development and construction of its own space vehicles instead of purchasing trips from private companies.
