In this image made from video provided by NASA, astronauts, from left, Bob Behnken, Eric Boe, Doug Hurley and Sunita Williams gather for an interview at the Johnson Space Center in Houston on Friday, July 10, 2015.
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On Thursday, NASA revealed the profiles of the four astronauts who were picked to fly its first commercial space flights.
All four astronauts have extensive flight test experience. They will work closely with Boeing and SpaceX, which are the two commercial launch providers awarded commercial crew contracts, to develop their crew transportation systems to and from the ISS. SpaceX is proposing two NASA astronauts for the shakedown of its Dragon crew capsule, a bigger, better version of the one it uses now to haul space station cargo. Hurley is a Marine colonel who was part of the Endeavour crew in 2009 as its pilot and the Atlantis’ final mission in 2011.
The commercial crew program seeks to provide an alternative way to get astronauts to the global Space Station (ISS) without relying on Russian rockets, as is currently done.
“These four individuals, like so many at NASA and the Flight Operations Directorate, have dedicated their careers to becoming experts in the field of aeronautics and furthering human space exploration”. Boeing has not yet identified its astronaut. While there, she was also assigned as the squadron Safety Officer and flew test flights in the SH-60B/F, UH-1, AH-1W, SH-2, VH-3, H-46, CH-53 and the H-57.
The Boeing and SpaceX taxi flights will enable NASA to increase the space station’s current crew of six to seven, allowing more science research to be conducted onboard the microgravity laboratory. During her entire lifetime, she has spent 322 days in space.
NASA managers have repeatedly said any such shortfall would delay the initial flights, extending US reliance on Russian Soyuz spacecraft for rides to and from the space station. Williams, a Navy captain, has been an astronaut corps member since 1998. Apparently, the world record holder for an astronaut who has spent the most time during spacewalks is a woman, where Williams lived in the orbiting space lab in 2012. He flew on two space shuttle missions, logging 29 days in space.
At the hearing, Paul Martin, NASA’s inspector general, said that his office was looking at whether the agency’s private contractors should be leading investigations into their own accidents.
NASA has been hiring out supply runs to the space station for the past few years and wants to do the same with crew transport, so it can focus on getting astronauts out of low-Earth orbit and on to Mars and other destinations.
The training includes participating in test flights of Boeing’s CST-100 capsule and SpaceX’s Dragon.
“Had we received everything (the Obama administration) asked for, we’d be preparing to send these astronauts to space on commercial carriers as soon as this year”, he said.
The astronauts will now meet with Boeing and SpaceX, the companies that will ultimately build the spacecraft used to ferry them.
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Plus, NASA will save almost $20 million per seat with an American-owned spacecraft.
