Chuck Hardison talks to media about plans to take NASA astronauts to the International Space Station in Orbiter Processing Facility 3.

Chuck Hardison, the production and ground operations manager of The Boeing Co.'s Commercial Crew Transportation System, talks to media about plans to take NASA astronauts to the International Space Station in Orbiter Processing Facility-3 (OPF-3) at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Boeing is maturing its CST-100 spacecraft design for NASA's Commercial Crew Program (CCP) under the Commercial Crew Development Round 2 (CCDev2) activities. Boeing's current design shows the CST-100 taking up to seven astronauts and cargo to the space station or other low Earth orbit destinations by the middle of the decade. Through an agreement with NASA and Space Florida, Boeing is leasing OPF-3, the Processing Control Facility (PCC) and Space Shuttle Main Engine Shop at Kennedy to design, manufacture, process and integrate the CST-100. This work is expected to generate up to 550 engineering and technical jobs for Florida's Space Coast. Hardison explained that the CST-100 will be manufactured using a spin-form technology, which is expected to bring down the cost and safety concerns of a traditional welded spacecraft. It's innovations such as this that CCP hopes will drive down the cost of space travel as well as open up space to more people than ever before.

Seven aerospace companies are maturing launch vehicle and spacecraft designs under CCDev2, including Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK) of Promontory, Utah, Blue Origin of Kent, Wash., The Boeing Co., of Houston, Excalibur Almaz Inc. of Houston, Sierra Nevada Corp. of Louisville, Colo., Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif., and United Launch Alliance (ULA) of Centennial, Colo. For more information, visit www.nasa.gov/exploration/commercial Photo credit: Jim Grossmann