The essence of the message is this: Congress, you have failed to support this program, and in doing so are choosing to fund the Russian space program instead of American companies that could be flying our astronauts to the worldwide Space Station.
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NASA Administrator Charles Bolden sent a letter to Congress asking that the Commercial Crew Program’s budget be increased.
“Under this contract modification, the cost of these services to the U.S. taxpayers will be approximately $490 million”, Bolden wrote, on behalf of his agency.
Bolden writes that the next opportunity for the agency to launch a crew into space may be in two years, but that will only be possible with more funding.
In 2014, the space agency partnered up with private companies Boeing and SpaceX to help develop a means of transportation for NASA’s crew members to travel to the space station, investing about $1.4 billion in contracts with private contractors.
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program needs 1.24 billion dollars in funding.
Both SpaceX and its Dragon 2 vehicle, along with Boeing and its CST-100 spacecraft, have a test flight schedule that includes their first historic missions to the ISS.
“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.
As a result NASA was “forced” to extend its existing contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency (Roscosmos) as the sole deliverer of astronauts to space, after the retirement of the space shuttle program in 2011. It was announced in September of 2014, that the two firms had been selected to proceed to the Commercial Crew transportation Capability phase of the program.
The reliance on Russia for station crew transportation stands in sharp contrast to a congressional ban on imports of Russian rocket engines for U.S. military satellite launches.
I am writing to inform you that NASA, once again, has modified its current contract with the Russian government to meet America’s requirements for crew transportation services.
If Congress goes forward with these cuts, it “would likely result in funds running out for both contractors during the spring/summer of FY 2016”, Bolden said.
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“The greatest nation on Earth should not be dependent on others to launch humans into space”, Bolden said in his letter.
