Date published: 2006/09/01
The BBC says:
The Lockheed Martin Corporation will build the next US spaceship to take humans to the Moon.
Nasa has awarded a multi-billion-dollar contract to the group to develop the Orion vehicle, which will replace the space shuttle when it retires in 2010.
The agency is dropping the shuttle's winged, reusable design and is going back to the capsule-style ships that first carried Americans into orbit.
Lockheed Martin beat a joint bid from Northrop Grumman and Boeing.
The US space agency wants to fly the Orion vehicles no later than 2014. Initially, they will go to the International Space Station, but Nasa plans to send one to the Moon in 2020.
It took less than 9 years from the time JFK made his famous "moon landing" speech until the US made its first moon landing. Four decades later it will take getting on twice as long, even though, of course, it has been done already, so there is nothing that novel. That's progress.
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