How did Lockheed win NASAs Orion contract?
On September 1, 2006, NASA announced it had awarded the multi-billion-dollar contract to build the next-generation manned spacecraft to Lockheed Martin Corporation. While Lockheed Martin is an aerospace giant, with tons of experience in building unmanned rockets, capsules and probes, it has never built a manned spacecraft before. In fact, when it won the contract for the previous iteration of the next-generation manned spacecraft, the X-33 space plane, the project was a complete failure, and NASA’s $900 million investment was a wash. So many are wondering why Lockheed won the contract over the team of Northrop Grumman and Boeing. The two companies, together or individually, have built nearly all of NASA’s manned spacecraft to date, including the Apollo craft that made the first moon landing and the current space shuttle fleet. While NASA hasn’t offered many details about why it chose Lockheed to build the Orion Crew Exploration Vehicle , industry analysts are speculating. One theory se
