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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. ...
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.
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
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.
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
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.
"“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.