Spaceflight future? NASA is outsourcing
commercial spaceflight.”
For these companies, it’s also about capturing the cash. NASA will soon be paying the Russians about $63 million for each U.S. astronaut who flies on that country’s Soyuz rocket to the space station.
Boeing’s Jon Elbon, manager of the CST-100, which is what the company is calling its ship, said Boeing’s prices will be competitive with what the Russians are charging. Boeing is also working with Bigelow Aerospace on bringing paying tourists up to a potential private space hotel.
Musk, who also started an electric sports car company and hopes to someday send his rockets to the Mars and fly families for $1 million for one-way tickets, promises to undercut the Russians’ price substantially.
For all the talk of launching soon, George Abbey, former director of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, remains skeptical: “I’m not sure it will happen anytime soon.”
Former astronaut Glenn likes the idea; he just doesn’t think it will happen as quickly as the companies do.
“To me that’s not all bad,” he said. “The government has always stepped out and done the things that private industry wouldn’t or couldn’t do” and then let companies run it when it is more affordable. He pointed to the Pentagon-inspired Internet.
NASA is hoping these companies are ready.
Just minutes after Atlantis lifted off on the final space shuttle mission, NASA spokesman Bob Jacobs turned to his counterpart from SpaceX and told him, “It’s your turn now.”
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Aerospace writer Marcia Dunn contributed to this report from Cape Canaveral, Fla.
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