NASA sets its sights back on deep space

NASA is a step closer to launching astronauts from American soil again.

The space agency announced Tuesday that Boeing and Space-x will ferry crew members to the International Space Station starting in 2017.

Right now, the United States pays Russia $70 million per seat for the ride into orbit. The new agreement also helps NASA's other mission: returning to deep space, reports CBS News correspondent Ben Tracy.

NASA's new Orion spacecraft is located 65 miles out in the Pacific Ocean. It's designed to take American astronauts back into deep space.

"It will be the first time in 40 years that this nation, the most powerful nation in the world, has ever designed and built a spacecraft intended to carry humans beyond low earth orbit, and that's a big, big deal," said Charles Boden, head of NASA.

Boden was on board the Navy ship to oversee a test run of recovering Orion after it comes back to Earth. And if it all sounds a bit familiar, it should; Orion is the distant relative of Apollo, which also touched down in the Pacific.

Apollo is the spaceship that took man and his footprints to the moon, so Orion is a bit of a back-to-the-future moment for NASA.

The technology on the $9 billion project is light-years ahead of Apollo. It was built by Lockheed Martin and is upgradable and reusable. It will carry as many as six astronauts who will be able to explore distant asteroids and even the moons of Mars.

Orion is expected to re-enter the atmosphere at up to 20,000 miles per hour.

What hasn't changed is the ending; it's still decidedly low-tech. During the test run it took nearly three hours to hook Orion and drag it out of the water. They flooded the back of the navy ship and eventually guided the capsule on board.

In December, the ship will make its first flight, traveling 3,600 miles above the Earth -- 15-times farther than the International Space Station.

Orion is critical to NASA because the agency retired the space shuttle program in 2011. That's forced American astronauts to rely on the Russians for rides into space.

"I think any astronaut would want to, you know, hop on and take a ride," said NASA astronaut Nicole Stott.

Stott flew on the final flight of the space Shuttle Discovery. She's excited to have a new spaceship.

"What I think about is the future, and this is one of several vehicles that we're looking at to get the United States back in a spacecraft into space," Stott said, "this one for sure is one that's going to take us farther than we've gone in a very long time."

The first American astronauts are expected to board Orion in 2021. Their destination: still unknown.