Budget cuts for NASA pay off for Russia
View of Earth from the space station. NASA officials want private companies to take American astronauts into space. Image: NASA.
That question is at the heart of a letter sent to Congress by Charles Bolden, NASA administrator, complaining about cuts in the president’s funding requests for the Commercial Crew Program – in which private companies would take American astronauts to the station.
In September 2014, NASA announced that The Boeing Co. and SpaceX would be awarded a total of $6.8 billion in contracts to transport astronauts to the space station.
But arguments over NASA's Commercial Crew plans have continued. Bolden’s Aug. 5 letter, made public on the agency’s website, indicated that budget cuts are holding the program back -- and astronauts still need transportation to the space station. Bolden wrote that NASA has been forced to extend its contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency to transport American astronauts.
The president’s budget request summary, released earlier this year, showed an overall $18.5 billion budget for NASA. A brief in April for a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology, summed up the issues surrounding NASA's Commercial Crew this way:
"This year’s request includes a significant increase for the (Commercial Crew) program. The request of $1.24 billion is an increase of $438.8 million (55 percent) over FY15 (fiscal year 2015). The administration contends that this increase is required to support two contracts through the certification phase. The administration has not offered any alternative acquisition model (such as selecting a single contractor) that would fall within historical funding levels for this program. NASA also has not conducted an independent cost estimate for the program."
USA Today reports that during the last five years Congress has cut about $1 billion from President Barack Obama's requests for the Commercial Crew program.
In 2011, NASA's space shuttle program ended. American astronauts have been transported to the space station on Russian spacecraft. In his letter, Bolden noted that he initially wanted American launches to begin again by 2015.
“Under this contract modification, the cost of these services [by the Russians] to the U.S. taxpayers will be approximately $490 million,” Bolden wrote. “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.”
Related:
Boeing, SpaceX to fly astronauts to station
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