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Congress Decides To Delay US-Launched Astronauts, Keep Using Russian Services
New submitter surfdaddy writes: In order to protect the entrenched big aerospace companies, the Congress has increased NASA's budget for FY2016 but has cut funding for "commercial crew." Commercial crew is the funding used by SpaceX for the planned initial manned launches in the first half of 2017. With this cut, the launch of U.S. astronauts from U.S. soil using U.S. rockets will be delayed two years, and we will continue to send millions of dollars to Russia for launch services. "Senate appropriators suggested that NASA’s plans announced earlier this year to procure Soyuz seats for missions in 2018 indicated that the agency was not confident at even this early stage that the two companies with commercial crew contracts, Boeing and SpaceX, could remain on schedule to begin flights in 2017. ...
Being able to do military launches means SpaceX neatly outmaneuvered this attempt to cut them off at the knees.
I guess that means the the overall budget will be smaller than last year?
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
I think it will be funny if Russia subcontracts the launches back to SpaceX and pockets the profit. Would make Congress and Boeing look stupid.
are more anti Obama than they are pro usa
This would still be cheaper than paying Boeing to do the launches.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
There will never be a Delta IV Orion with humans on it. Even ULA is planning to sunset Delta and Atlas for a new rocket to replace these. Probably will somehow manage to make it even more expensive for taxpayers and a way to keep retired Air Force colonels employed.
I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
No it's going to be cheaper to launch using US launch services. Especially with SpaceX. That's the *really* interesting bit.
"a Soyuz spacecraft docked at the station unexpectedly started" yep, that would do it.
http://www.space.com/29632-soy...
1. Orion is too heavy so it can't be launched on anything less than a Delta IV Heavy. That's assuming its weight doesn't increase further.
2. ULA is cutting Delta IV core production.
3. Delta IV Heavy is not man-rated. The rocket just ain't reliable enough.
This is the same congress that has specifically said that DoD payloads can't be launched using the RD-180 after a certain date to PREVENT us from spending more money buying RD-180 engines from Russia... but in order to get to the ISS we are willing to pay the Russians for a ride.
Ugh!!!
Quoting
http://mic.com/articles/11354/...
:
At $60 million-a-seat, the aging Russian Soyuz program will hopefully soon be eclipsed by the $20 million-a-seat Dragon.
The Dragon is the name of the SpaceX capsule.
Orion costs 320x more than Commercial Crew (SpaceX AND Boeing capsules):
http://mic.com/articles/11354/...
Last I checked, spacex wants to charge less than Russia. Also last I checked, Russia isn't a corporation.
I bet there will be a no subcontract clause or a clause specifying what launch vehicle is used.
This would still be cheaper than paying Boeing to do the launches.
Boeing has to charge more, to fund all their political donations, and jobs for ex-bureaucrats. But the sleaze pays off. That is how they got the contract for the KC-X contract over a better and cheaper bid from Northrup-EADS. The USAF picked the better bid, but congress forced them to give the contract to Boeing.
If SpaceX wants to compete in this market, they need to use a lot more grease.
>> spacex wants to charge less than Russia
everybody "wants" to be cheaper, better, more reliable than Soyuz.
Nobody suceeded in 6 decades.
aaaaaaa
Did you even read about what they did with the funding?
Yes, they cut funding to SpaceX efforts (commercial crew) in favor of securing additional seats with the Russians on future dates. However the reasons where clearly due to Space X's failure to get their act together and provide confidence that they will be human rated in time to take over when the contract with the Russians was set to end. So NASA really doesn't have much choice, because if Space X isn't ready when the current seats we have from the Russians end, we'd be in a place where no US crew replacements would be possible.
It's also not a total abandoning of Space X, they remain funded, albeit at a lower level. They will still be doing cargo delivery and working towards human rated transport. Congress just moved future funding to the sure thing of Russian transport in order to de-risk keeping the Space Station going.
Congress DID fund NASA's Orion project fully, and then some, meaning that the idea here is to get the US back to where we had human rated systems and can transport our own people in our own equipment. So, where the short term effect is to fund the Russians, the LONG term idea is to use US built equipment to transport US personnel to the station as soon as Orion can human rated and made available. Plus, if Space X get's it's act together and manages to get human rated, you can bet that congress will GLADLY abandon the Russians in future budgets. In fact, they are COUNTING on doing so after 2018 at this point.
And here I thought the leftist where all upset with the republicans for being aligned with big business all the time, here they are cutting direct funding for Space X (a private business enterprise) and all you can say is they are off shoring work? If Musk wants to make up the measly $334 million with his own investors, he can keep development going just fine thank you... They don't seem to be lacking investors and they seem to have at least SOME ability to make money from cargo flights for the ISS and other launches so coughing up another few million shouldn't be an issue.
Offshoring jobs, give me a break, 334 Million is a drop in the bucket in that world.... My guess is you are upset about Congress choosing to defund programs going to huge democratic supporter owned companies... You want welfare for these kinds of companies, because they support your political views...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
At the moment they're kinda killing that reputation. Rampant corruption seems to be leading to terrible quality control. All it will take is the inevitable manned mission to go horribly wrong to redirect the spigot back where it belongs.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Yes, but what you fail to point out is that Congress continued to fund the entrenched players, while the upstart that has far lower costs was drastically cut and delayed two years.
Congress cuts funding for a program that (at least on the SpaceX side) is well advanced in producing a man-rated booster and capsule to replace the Russian rides to the ISS and yet they INCREASE funding for a program that has yet to even produce a full-size prototype, doesn't have a proper mission yet, just some thought bubbles AND is costing far more than it would cost if you just said "this is what we want the rocket to do, who can build it for us"
I think there are 2 things going on here.
First is that there is an election comming up and the votes of a bunch of ATK workers in Utah who have been promised jobs in the SLS program to replace the jobs they had in the shuttle program are somehow important enough to matter (which is a reflection on just how broken the US political system is). Hence the increase in funding for SLS to get it to the "actually building stuff" phase much faster. (and to assure the workers in question that their jobs are safe)
And second is that SpaceX has the lead in producing a crew rated capsule right now (their crew capsule and rocket are a modified version of the capsule and rocket they are launching to the ISS already whereas Boeing has to develop a capsule from scratch) so the cut in funding and the delay is a chance to give Boeing time to catch up (since Boeing is too politically and economically important to allow SpaceX to win this race on its own)
The upstart is much closer to doing this than the entrenched players - they don't have a capsule that has flown. The Dragon has already been to the station many times. I don't see how you can claim that the entrenched players are somehow safer or farther along than SpaceX.
The Delta IV can't afford lose an engine either. The Falcon 9 is designed via their 9 pack to suffer multiple engine out and still complete mission objectives. Same reason most aeronautic systems have at least double redundancy. In the case of SpaceX, they went one better with triple redundancy in the flight control systems. ULA and Arianespace are developing new vehicles largely in response to SpaceX. You know, that terrible communist idea of market competition.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Because he doesn't know chinese? :P
"“I am deeply disappointed that the Senate Appropriations subcommittee does not fully support NASA’s plan to once again launch American astronauts from U.S. soil as soon as possible, and instead favors continuing to write checks to Russia.
“Remarkably, the Senate reduces funding for our Commercial Crew Program further than the House already does compared to the President’s Budget.
“By gutting this program and turning our backs on U.S. industry, NASA will be forced to continue to rely on Russia to get its astronauts to space – and continue to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the Russian economy rather than our own.
Yeah, European powers used to be in charge of destabilizing many parts of the world in their attempts to bend the world to suit their agendas.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Besides you, who specifically doubts that SpaceX or Boeing (the other commercial crew contractor) will be unable to fly crew by 2017? Crew Dragon is supposed to fly (unmanned)in 2016. Boeing early 2017.
Corruption? Are you talking abut Russia or USAF/Boeing? I'm confused.
Why is Snark Required?