Boeing leasing shuttle hangar to build new capsule

Boeing is taking over one of NASA's old space shuttle hangars to build a new capsule that the company hopes will lift astronauts to orbit in four or five years.

More than 100 Boeing, NASA and state and federal officials gathered in the massive empty hangar -- Orbiting Processing Facility No. 3 -- for the announcement of the first-of-its-kind agreement allowing a private company to take over the government property.

The aerospace company expects to create 550 high-tech jobs at Kennedy Space Center over the next four years, 140 of them by the end of next year. That's less than 10 percent of the approximately 6,000 shuttle jobs lost in Florida over the past several years, but Gov. Rick Scott and other lawmakers at the ceremony said they expect additional hirings by the commercial space industry.

NASA is counting on companies like Boeing, Space Exploration Technologies Corp. and others to ferry cargo and astronauts to and from the International Space Station in three to five years. Until then, the space agency will continue to shell out tens of millions of dollars per seat on Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

Alternative Health News

Read More

NASA hands over keys to space shuttle Endeavour

NASA officially signed over the ownership of Endeavour, its youngest space shuttle, to the California Science Center in Los Angeles Tuesday, setting the stage for the retired spaceship's delivery to the museum next year.

Space agency officials handed over Endeavour's title during a ceremony at the science center and plan to deliver the space shuttle in the second half of 2012.

"NASA is pleased to share this wonderful orbiter with the California Science Center to help inspire a new generation of explorers," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said in a statement. "The next chapter in space exploration begins now, and we're standing on the shoulders of the men and women of the shuttle program to reach farther into the solar system."

The California Science Center is one of four institutions across the country selected by Bolden to serve as the permanent home for NASA's space shuttle vehicles. Bolden announced his decision on April 12 of this year, the 30th anniversary of the first space shuttle launch in 1981.

Alligator boots

Diamond Studs

Read More