Boeing To Build Personal Transport Spacecraft
During a media briefing at the Farnborough (UK) Airshow on Monday, the Boeing Company released artist’s renderings of a new spacecraft that could be used to shuttle people to the International Space Station (ISS)–or perhaps, one day, even transport individuals to private space stations.
The mock-ups of the Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 spacecraft were unveiled by the Chicago, Illinois-based aerospace and defense company. They illustrate a cone-shaped craft that is similar in design to NASA’s Apollo or Orion capsules.
Furthermore, Space.com reports that the company is working alongside Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace to develop "private inflatable space habitats with the goal of launching the first private space station in 2014. The company has already launched two prototype modules into space."
"Boeing is maturing the design of its CST-100 spacecraft under an $18 million Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) Space Act Agreement with NASA," the company reported via press release on Monday. "The CST-100 can carry a crew of seven and is designed to support the International Space Station and the Bigelow Aerospace Orbital Space Complex."
"The CST-100 will be bigger than Apollo but smaller than Orion, and be able to launch on a variety of different rockets, including Atlas, Delta and Falcon," added Boeing officials. "It will use a simple systems architecture and existing, proven components. The ’100′ in CST-100 refers to the 100 kilometers [62 miles] from the ground to low Earth orbit."
According to Space.com, the company hopes the CST-100 will be ready to help fill the void created by the retirement of the Space Shuttle program, which was recently pushed back until 2011. It will be able to carry a crew of seven, and Chow reports that the company plans to launch out of Florida.
Earlier on Monday, also at the Farnborough Airshow, a full-scale replica of the Bloodhound SuperSonic Car (SSC) was unveiled by a British team that plans to use the vehicle to break the 1,000mph speed barrier. Testing on the car is expected to begin in late 2011, and if the car is successful in its attempt, it will break the existing speed record of 763mph that was set by the Thrust SuperSonic Car in 1997.
Images Courtesy Boeing Space Exploration
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