NASA Will Not Launch Astronauts for 5 Years

This is Boeing's proposed design. 

In only 5 short years NASA will have humans back in space. Good for them. 

Not. In my opinion we should be on MArs by now. We were on the moon by 1969, we should still be on the moon, and to Mars by 2012, for god's sake!

(Heavy Breathing)

Anyways, NASA retired it's shuttle last summer, so right now, they have no active means to send people to space. This morning they announced a deal worth about $1 billion with three American companies to design and construct the next generation of rocket ships to take off from US soil, reports ComputerWorld. The three companies are Sierra Nevada, SpaceX, and Boeing (Planes!), and the space vehicles they engineer will be flown for the government and for commercial use. (AP has more details on them here.)

"Today, we are announcing another critical step toward launching our astronauts from US soil on space systems built by American companies," NASA chief Charles Bolden said in a statement. The move "will help keep us on track to end the outsourcing of human spaceflight and create high-paying jobs in Florida and elsewhere across the country." 

In the meantime, US astronauts will continue to hitch rides with them Russian. (Insert Indiana Jones Music here.)