The future LEO architecture will be dominated not by NASA and the ISS but rather by commercial entrepreneurs and endeavors in the 2020s. There are going to be other commercial stations or other laboratories, Why is NASAs Commercial Crew Program to develop private human transport ships to low Earth orbit important? Thats the question I posed to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden when we met for an exclusive interview at NASA Goddard. The Commercial Crew Program (CCP) is the critical enabler for establishing a viable orbital infrastructure in the 2020s, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden told Universe Today in an exclusive one-on-one interview at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. Bolden says NASA wants one of the new American-made private crewed spaceships under development by SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada – with NASA funding – to be ready to ferry US astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) and back to Earth by late 2017. Flights for other commercial orbital space ventures would follow later and into the next decade. Since the shutdown of NASAs space shuttle program following the final flight by STS-135 in 2011 (commanded by Chris Ferguson), America has been 100% dependent on the Russians to fly our astronauts to the space station and back. Commercial crew is critical. We need to have our own capability to get our crews to space, Bolden told me, during a visit to the NASA Goddard cleanroom with the agencys groundbreaking Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) science probes. Administrator Bolden foresees a huge shift in how the US will conduct space operations in low earth orbit (LEO) just a decade from now. The future LEO architecture will be dominated not by NASA and the ISS but rather by commercial entrepreneurs and endeavors in the 2020s. There are going to be other commercial stations or other laboratories, Bolden excitedly told me. And the cash strapped Commercial Crew effort to build new astronaut transporters is the absolutely essential enabler to get that exploration task done, he says. Commercial Crew is critical to establishing the low Earth orbit infrastructure that is required for exploration. We have got to have a way to get our crews to space. You know people try to separate stuff that NASA does into nice little neat packages. But its not that way anymore. Bolden and NASA are already looking beyond the ISS in planning how to use the new commercial crew spaceships being developed by SpaceX, Boeing and Sierra Nevada in a public- partnership with NASAs Commercial Crew Program. Everything we do [at NASA] is integrated. We have to have commercial crew [for] a viable low Earth orbit infrastructure – a place where we can do testing – for example with whats going on at the ISS today. And in the out years you are going to be doing the same type of work. But its not going to be on the ISS. paceX CEO Elon Musk unveils SpaceX Dragon V2 next generation astronaut spacecraft on May 29, 2014. Credit: Robert Fisher/America Space After 2024 or maybe 2028, if we extend it again, you are going to see the people on commercial vehicles. There are going to be other stations or other laboratories. But there wont be NASA operated laboratories. They will be commercially viable and operating laboratories. Private NewSpace ventures represent a revolutionary departure from current space exploration thinking. But none of these revolutionary commercial operations will happen if we dont have reliable and cost effective human access to orbit from American soil with American rockets on American spaceships. We need to have our own capability to get our crews to space – first of all. Thats why commercial crew is really, really, really important, Bolden emphasized. The ongoing crises in Ukraine makes development of a new US crew transporter to end our total reliance on Russian spaceships even more urgent. Right now we use the Russian Soyuz. It is a very reliable way to get our crews to space. Our partnership with Roscosmos is as strong as its ever been. So we just keep watching whats going on in other places in the world, but we continue to work with Roscosmos the way we always have, Bolden stated. The latest example is this weeks successful launch of the new three man Russian-US- German Expedition 40 crew to the ISS on a Soyuz. Of course, the speed at which the US develops the private human spaceships is totally dependent on the funding level for the Commercial Crew program. Unfortunately, progress in getting the space taxis actually built and flying has been significantly slowed because the Obama Administration CCP funding requests for the past few years of roughly about $800 million have been cut in half by a reluctant US Congress. Thus forcing NASA to delay the first manned orbital test flights by at least 18 months from 2015 to 2017. And every forced postponement to CCP costs US taxpayers another $70 million payment per crew seat to the Russians. As a result of the congressional CCP cuts more than 1 Billion US Dollars have been shipped to Russia instead of on building our own US crew transports – leaving American aerospace workers unemployed and American manufacturing facilities shuttered. I asked Bolden to assess NASAs new funding request for the coming fiscal year 2015 currently working its way through Congress. Its looking better. Its never good. But now its looking much better, Bolden replied. If you look at the House markup thats a very positive indication that the budget for commercial crew is going to be pretty good.
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 08:39:48 +0000
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