Looks like the push to replace the Space Shuttle has revived, after Bush pretty much killed the effort (not the Shuttle) with his \"let\'s go to Mars\" speech. The Washingon Times reports that NASA is planning to retire the shuttle fleet by 2010 and will need a new vehicle to send astronauts and supplies up to the International Space Station.

NASA initially planned to select two teams from among the proposals submitted last week and award contracts of an unspecified amount for both to begin design work in August or September. Then in 2008, the agency would choose one contractor to actually build the vehicle, with the first flight with people aboard scheduled for 2014.\ NASA\'s new administrator, Michael Griffin, found this scenario unacceptable and put the agency on notice he intended to shorten or eliminate the four-year transition time between shuttle and CEV.

Besides the usual big contractors looking to cash in, a local company based in Reston, t/Space, is pitching its own vision for the replacement.

Under the t/Space plan, teams led by Lockheed Martin or Northrop Grumman would still build the CEV, but the vehicle would be designed solely to transport astronauts between Earth orbit and the Moon. The job of getting astronauts up to their Moon-bound CEV would fall to t/Space and an air-launched four-person capsule they have dubbed the Crew Transfer Vehicle, or CXV. The projected recurring cost of the service is \$20 million per flight.

There\'s already a good discussion on Slashdot.