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WASHINGTON — NASA has chosen two companies — both recovering from different failures — to develop a new commercial spaceship.

The two would get a total of almost $500 million in "seed money" from NASA over the next five years to develop and test-launch new spacecraft with the idea they would one day deliver cargo to the international space station.

One company, Rocketplane Kistler of Oklahoma City, has formed a partnership with big-name companies, including Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, with long aerospace histories. But Rocketplane emerged from bankruptcy last year. The other company, SpaceX of El Segundo, Calif., is funded by Elon Musk, the Internet tycoon behind PayPal. It had a flaming failure in its initial rocket launch earlier this year.

The NASA deal would not only make the nation's space agency a regular customer, it would also give the companies a big start in getting their rocket businesses off the ground for private uses, including space tourism.

Rocketplane Kistler already announced it would launch a couple into suborbit in 2008 for the first marriage in space. SpaceX has already sold a rocket launch to Bigelow Aerospace's planned private space station.

Scott Horowitz, NASA's exploration chief who chose the two from a field of six competitors, said the two companies' recent setbacks weren't a problem because failure and high risk are part of the rocket business and the key is how you recover.

"In some cases, failure is a good thing to have on your record because that learning is behind you," Horowitz said at a late Friday press conference.

Rocketplane Kistler's K-1 would launch and land over land, with Australia as the initial location for both. The company's president, Randy Brinkley, formerly oversaw space station operations at NASA.

SpaceX rockets now launch from the Pacific island atoll Kwajalein and land in water there, but eventually would use Cape Canaveral, Musk said.