Alan Boyle reports at MSNBC.com that "several" vendors are in negotiations for $500 million in commercial orbital transport service (with the same acronym as commercial off the shelf):

Oklahoma-based Rocketplane Kistler and California-based Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, acknowledged that they were finalists. Other sources, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the official NASA reticence, indicated that the Virginia-based t/Space consortium, California-based SpaceDev, Texas-based Spacehab and Andrews Space in Seattle were also on the list.

Before being bought by George French, owner of Rocketplane (whose flights I am offering as a prize at Space-Shot.com), Kistler had an agreement with NASA which was unawarded after an objection from SpaceX. In this competition, there are many strong companies and the winner may have a march on orbital adventure travel competition. I hope the winner chooses a fixed price agreement so it will maintain the discipline to compete in the private markets too.

It will be interesting to see who smiles and who wails and gnashes teeth.

Dennis

I'm going to go out on a twig and predict that t/space gets the biggest chunk, followed by SpaceX, since they are farthest along and offer complete solutions. If they're only funding 3, then the last slot would depend on whether they want a backup booster design or a backup capsule design.

Speaking of capsule designs, how cross-compatible do they look between the different boosters? Would CXV fit on a Falcon 9, or Dragon on the t/space booster, or any of them on an Atlas or stick?

I wonder after the next downselect, we can expect some of the losing entities to partner with the winners?

...we can expect some of the losing entities to partner with the winners?

Maybe, but COTS isn't the only game in town. For instance, XCOR didn't even bid.