NASA gives funding for new spacecraft

NASA has awarded nearly $270 million to four companies competing to develop a commercial spacecraft that could replace the aging space shuttle fleet. The major share of the award went to the Boeing Company, which received over $92 million.

SpaceX, Sierra Nevada Corp., and Blue Origin also won contracts from NASA.

The companies have been working on building a craft to transport astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station.

Lydia O’Kane spoke to Brother Guy Consolmagno, curator of meteorites at the Vatican Observatory, about the future of space travel who says," it takes a good ten or fifteen years to really build something that will replace it (the shuttle)".

There are two shuttle flights left as NASA winds down the shuttle program.
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