Space: SpaceX, Boeing among spacecraft development winners

Three companies were today charged with developing crewed spacecraft that will take American astronauts to low-Earth orbit, replacing the NASA space shuttle, which was retired last year.
NASA chose SpaceX of Hawthorne, California; Boeing of Chicago, Illinois; and Sierra Nevada Corporation of Louisville, Colorado to develop commercial crewed spacecraft that must be ready to fly within five years.
A major aim of the commercial crewed spaceflight program is to end NASA outsourcing of human spaceflight and create high-paying jobs across the country, says NASA chief Charles Bolden. Right now, NASA has to buy seats to the International Space Station from its space race arch rival, Russia.
Boeing was granted $460 million by NASA for its crewed development program. The company is a trusted pair of hands with a spaceflight pedigree that dates back to the Apollo moon program. Boeing has developed a solid seven-person crewed capsule design, called the CST-100 (pictured above in an artist's rendering) based on its decades of experience.
The appointment of SpaceX, a spaceflight neophyte compared to Boeing - and run by Tesla Motors chief and PayPal co-founder Elon Musk - has been on the cards ever since the firm successfully launched and docked its Dragon cargo capsule at the space station in May. It was awarded $440 million by NASA. But SpaceX isn't waiting five years to get people into orbit, as its design is well advanced, and has even been pictured with a mock crew aboard.