PALMDALE - Northrop Grumman and Boeing unveiled Wednesday a spacecraft resembling the Apollo moon craft - only shorter, wider and more capable - as their entry in the competition to build NASA's next manned spacecraft.

The Northrop Grumman-Boeing team will vie with a team led by Lockheed Martin for the right to design and build the crew exploration vehicle, a spacecraft intended to carry astronauts to the International Space Station by 2012 and back to the moon by 2018.

"Early on, we concluded that this modular, capsule-based approach would establish an ideal foundation for a successful, sustainable human and robotic space exploration program," said Doug Young, program manager for the Northrop Grumman-Boeing CEV team. "It's also a system that can be designed and built today using proven technologies, which will help maintain the nation's leadership role in human space flight."

The three-section craft - consisting of the crew-carrying command module, a service module and a launch-abort system - could carry four astronauts to the moon's surface, instead of two as the Apollo capsules did in the 1960s and 1970s. The proposed spacecraft would be a little more than 32 feet long and 18 feet wide, compared to Apollo's length of just more than 36 feet and a width of just less than 13 feet.

The spacecraft will be produced as both a manned system and as an unmanned, cargo-carrying vehicle that would supply the International Space Station.

Team officials described their concept as "simple, safe and soon."

In addition to carrying more astronauts, the new spacecraft will offer other improvements over Apollo, according to Leonard Nicholson, the team's deputy program manager.

For example, the spacecraft will carry more fuel and will have more maneuvering capability, allowing it to support missions to any site on the moon rather than just sites in the moon's equator. The greater maneuverability also provides for a wider range of emergency returns to Earth.

The spacecraft would be able to orbit the moon for up to six months while its crew is on the moon's surface. Astronauts and ground controllers would be able to communicate with the spacecraft and monitor its "vital signs" remotely.

During the Apollo missions, one astronaut stayed in orbit while the lunar lander carrying two astronauts descended to the moon.

"The CEV we plan to build will benefit not so much from a single, technical breakthrough but rather from evolutionary improvements in structural technologies, electronics, avionics, thermal-management systems, software and integrated system-health-management systems over the past 40 years," Nicholson said.

Like Apollo, the space capsule would parachute back to Earth, though on land, rather than into oceans like the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules. In its conceptual video on the program, NASA depicts a landing at Edwards Air Force Base.

How the capsule would make that soft landing is yet to be determined. It could be with the use of airbags or with rockets. The Soviet Union, and now Russia, parachutes its capsules on land.

Initial work for the competition is being conducted in El Segundo. It is too early to state where work would be done if the team is successful in winning the contract, said Northrop Grumman spokesman Brooks McKinney.

Both Northrop Grumman and Boeing have operations at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale.

At the urging of George and Sharon Runner, the Antelope Valley's husband-and-wife state legislators, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has ordered the creation of a high-level team to look for ways to lure work on the program to California.

The Runners envision the team working to clear away bureaucratic hurdles, actively promote California's advantages to aerospace companies, and evaluate whether specific policy changes are necessary. The Runners believe that Air Force Plant 42, where the nation's space shuttle fleet was built, could handle work on the crew exploration vehicle.