LONDON: NASA has extended a contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency to transport American astronauts to the Space Station. Six seats have been purchased from Roscosmos to deliver the astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) aboard the Soyuz rocket. The take off is set for the year 2018 and will cost $490 million. At $81.6 million per seat, it’s a high cost NASA will be forced to pay.
Charles Bolden, a NASA administrator, said that because of funding reductions to the commercial space program, the US space agency is being forced to depend on Russia. NASA has relied on Russia’s Soyuz rocket since 2011 to get US astronauts up into space. Bolden stated in his letter to Congress that, “Since the decision to retire the Space Shuttle in 2004, NASA has been committed to developing a follow-on, low-Earth orbit transportation system and limiting our reliance on others to transport U.S. crew to the International Space Station (ISS).”
After five years Congress has still not provided enough funding even with slowly increasing yearly funding. Bolden continues to ask Congress members to focus their efforts to support the US space Industry. He asks Congress to put their differences behind them, and support the Boeing Corporation and SpaceX, which would allow the next step in constructing and certifying crew vehicles so that NASA might be able to begin launching in 2017. These crews would launch from the Space Coast of Florida.
NASA is working to establish a Commercial Crew Program which is pushing to get US astronauts up into space using American rockets. However, continued reductions over the years has the US unable to reach that goal as of yet.
Bolden asks Congress to provide the requested funds to the Commercial Crew Program, so they can break away from the dependence on the Russians to get the US into space.
