“These distinguished, veteran astronauts are blazing a new trail – that will one day land them in the history books and Americans on the surface of Mars”, said NASA administrator Charles Bolden.
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This contract comes after years of limited funding for NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, a partnership with private companies to develop and fly human space transportation systems.
At the moment, however, Congress is abstaining from financing the new “space taxi” program, so it may be inevitable to direct more of NASA’s funds to the Kremlin for assistance – more years of astronauts having to launch from Kazakhstan rather than Cape Canaveral.
The continuing Catch 22 scenario of fully funding the Commercial Crew Program versus paying Roscosmos for seats on the Russian Soyuz to bridge the ever-increasing gap in NASA’s crew launch capability is not being helped by the uncertainty in the funding levels allocated by Congress.
“Their selection allows NASA to move forward with the training necessary to deliver on President Barack Obama’s ambitious plan for returning the launch of the US astronauts to US soil”, said John Holdren, assistant to the President for science and technology.
NASA isn’t just fighting a battle to keep the Commercial Crew Program funded.
“Kirk brings considerable space station experience to this new leadership role”. A project comprising some 16 different nations, the ISS is now slated to remain on orbit until at least 2024.
He also served as the chair of the ISS Mission Management Team (IMMT) after managing several of its subsystem offices, and managed multiple offices for the Space Shuttle Program.
Since the close of the Apollo 17 mission to the Moon in 1972, NASA has only been able to send crews to LEO.
Since the decision to retire the Space Shuttle in 2004, NASA has been committed to developing a follow-on, low-Earth orbit transportation system and limiting our reliance on others to transport U.S. crew to the global Space Station (ISS). Under its current arrangement, NASA has to shell out almost $80 million for every seat on the Soyuz rocket.
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“I am asking that we put past disagreements behind us and focus our collective efforts on support for American industry – the Boeing Corporation and SpaceX – to complete construction and certification of their crew vehicles so that we can begin launching our crews from the Space Coast of Florida in 2017”, he wrote.
