Sparks, Nev. -- Sierra Nevada Corporation is in the race to build and launch the first commercial space shuttle.
Jim Voss has been on five space missions and is now the Vice President of the Space Exploration Team at Sierra Nevada Corporation, which is headquartered in Sparks. Voss’s team is one of four privately owned companies competing to design America’s first commercial space shuttle. Voss’s space shuttle project is named Dream Chaser.
“The primary purpose of the Dream Chaser is to carry people in the low earth orbit,” said Voss. “That is somewhere between 200-300 miles above earth’s surface.”
Its first customers will be NASA astronauts who will dock at the International Space Station said Voss.
“Later we expect to carry other people into space, which could be people with private research facilities, military or even private tourists,” he said.
The seven passenger space craft will also be able to carry cargo to and from space.
Currently, Voss’s team has been designing, building and testing their shuttle out of a facility in Boulder, Colorado.
NASA has awarded Sierra Nevada Corporation $100 million to help fund its project.
“NASA still writes the requirements that have to be met in order to certify the vehicle to fly their crews on board,” said Voss. “But it gives the company the freedom to act and design the vehicle they think is best.”
NASA will ultimately choose one of the four companies to launch its astronauts into space. The first commercial flight is expected to fly to the International Space Station in 2015.
