Boeing, Lockheed Martin Consider Selling Space Launch Business

As NASA brass debate the future of its crew capsule, Boeing is said to be trying to get out of the space launch business. Reuters is reporting that Boeing and Lockheed Martin, who jointly operate United Launch Alliance, are in talks to sell their rocket business to Sierra Space, a subsidiary of Sierra Nevada Corporation, an increasingly influential defense contractor that recently landed a $13 billion deal to build the federal government's new Survivable Airborne Operations System based on five used Boeing 747-8s.

The talks about the rocket business are in their early stages, and ULA has previously tried to unload it without success. The company competes with SpaceX to launch government payloads into orbit. Reuters said the company should bring in between $2 billion-$3 billion and could fit Sierra Nevada's plan to bring its Dream Chaser space plane to market and service the space station it's planning to build in partnership with Jeff Bezos's Blue Origin.

Meanwhile, NASA officials say they continue to consider options to return two test pilot astronauts to Earth after an extended stay, but it seems unlikely Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore will be going back on the Boeing Starliner crew capsule. A decision on whether to use the problematic capsule must be made by the end of August and NASA brass told reporters earlier this week that it's considering a variety of alternative plans to get them home, including leaving them on the ISS for another six months as substitute members of a new four-member crew that will launch to the ISS for a six-month tour in September. Instead of bringing four astronauts, the SpaceX rocket would have two crew on board who would return with Williams and Wilmore after their tour is complete.