Analysts Say Human Spaceflight Likely To Return To The Space Coast

With two companies working under NASA contracts, spaceflight analysts say that manned spaceflights can realistically return to the central Florida coast by the end of 2017.

Boeing and ULA recently conducted a tour of its remote construction yard where it is building components to support manned spaceflight from Cape Canaveral, according to a report in the Orlando Sentinel. The facility about 30 minutes from the Kennedy Space Center also has a mockup of the CST-100 spacecraft that will carry astronauts into space. Boeing plans unmanned test flights of the CST-100 in April, 2017.

SpaceX has unmanned test flights planned for later this year, with a manned launch anticipated in 2017. SpaceX spokesman Phil Larson told the paper that with private industry involved, the rate of innovation should accelerate due to competition.

The Space Coast has fallen on difficult economic times since the end of the shuttle program in 2011. Chris Ferguson flew on the final Atlantis mission, and is now Boeing's director of crew and mission operations. "We need to bring the business back, there is absolutely no question about it," he told the paper. "To have kept the business overseas this long is something we do not like doing."

FMI: Original Report