CCP At Four: Working Toward Space

[catdlr]

Published on Sep 16, 2013

NASA's Commercial Crew Program is four years old and continues to build momentum toward space. After beginning with artist concepts and designs, spacecraft developers now are testing full-size models and taking steps to qualify sub-systems. The agency's astronauts are practicing launches and landings in simulators to iron out the details in critical software. The Commercial Crew Program's progress so far is the result of diligent and relentless efforts to reshape America's human spaceflight program. Spacecraft developed by Commercial Crew Program partners will be the safest, most reliable and cost-effective transportation systems to and from low-Earth orbit and the International Space Station. NASA and the Commercial Crew Program stand on a path leading to launch from American soil in 2017.

[vt_hokie]

This program does not strike me as a good use of taxpayer dollars if the ultimate result ends up being one operational system (most likely Falcon/Dragon) and two more vehicles that join the long list of dead-end programs that never received enough support to see them through to completion.

[R7]

Would it be better to spend the CCP funds on purely government effort, barely covering the preliminary studies of just one dead-end program.

[guckyfan]

Would it be better to spend the CCP funds on purely government effort, barely covering the preliminary studies of just one dead-end program.

Or as an alternative, keep two (or three) systems alive and flying with a lot of taxpayer money for two (or three) different infrastructures?