The growing importance of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program

[Chris Bergin]

http://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2014/04/growing-importance-nasas-commercial-crew-program/

A comprehensive review of CCP as a feature, by the excellent Chris Gebhardt.

[Rocket Science]

Excellent article Chris G!

[AndyX]

Really informative read and really well put together. Leaned a lot from that!

[Coastal Ron]

From the article:

"While the Russian Soyuz is a highly reliable, safe, and veteran spacecraft (more so than any other currently-operational spacecraft), the fact that no human transportation redundancy to the ISS currently exists is a lesson the Columbia accident of 2003 should have prevented."

That truly sums up the situation, and reinforces the head scratching a lot of us do whenever Congress drags their heals on the Commercial Crew program.  Do they LIKE the U.S. being dependent on Putin's Russia?  Do they NOT TRUST America's aerospace industry?  I haven't heard a rational response from Congress on this yet...

Great article.

[docmordrid]

Very good article. Some "mainstream" (lamestream?) media types should go to school by reading it.

[Jose Martinez]

I'm relatively new to all of this, so that was such a great roundup of the recent history involving CCP!

[robertross]

That was a great read Chris G.
I would only add that the Soyuz is also the only crew vehicle able to bring astronauts back from the ISS as well.

[Halidon]

Great job, Chris G!

Maybe we need to email-bomb this to our Representatives?

[A_M_Swallow]

That truly sums up the situation, and reinforces the head scratching a lot of us do whenever Congress drags their heals on the Commercial Crew program.  Do they LIKE the U.S. being dependent on Putin's Russia?  Do they NOT TRUST America's aerospace industry?  I haven't heard a rational response from Congress on this yet...

Congress is a strategic body - so it should think about space policy once every 10 or 20 years.  Funding the Commercial Crew program is requiring Congress to take near tactical decisions every couple of years.  The wrong tool is being used for this job.

[clongton]

Good sum-up atricle on the CCP program Chris G.
It's nice to see a single brief of all the highlights in one place, and so well done.
Thank you.

[Ben the Space Brit]

From the article:

"While the Russian Soyuz is a highly reliable, safe, and veteran spacecraft (more so than any other currently-operational spacecraft), the fact that no human transportation redundancy to the ISS currently exists is a lesson the Columbia accident of 2003 should have prevented."

That truly sums up the situation, and reinforces the head scratching a lot of us do whenever Congress drags their heals on the Commercial Crew program.  Do they LIKE the U.S. being dependent on Putin's Russia?  Do they NOT TRUST America's aerospace industry?  I haven't heard a rational response from Congress on this yet...

This is purely opinion on my part but I don't think politicians work on the same level as us in terms of their understanding of cause and effect. I strongly suspect that they believe that, if they deploy enough strident rhetoric, patronage and threats of the withdrawal of the same, this will somehow serve to greatly accelerate Orion/SLS without a single extra cent of money. Then commercial crew won't be necessary because NASA will have its own efficient, safe and completely affordable crew launcher for the ISS! (Yes, I know...)

[Elmar Moelzer]

Great Article!

[Lurker Steve]

From the article:

"While the Russian Soyuz is a highly reliable, safe, and veteran spacecraft (more so than any other currently-operational spacecraft), the fact that no human transportation redundancy to the ISS currently exists is a lesson the Columbia accident of 2003 should have prevented."

That truly sums up the situation, and reinforces the head scratching a lot of us do whenever Congress drags their heals on the Commercial Crew program.  Do they LIKE the U.S. being dependent on Putin's Russia?  Do they NOT TRUST America's aerospace industry?  I haven't heard a rational response from Congress on this yet...

This is purely opinion on my part but I don't think politicians work on the same level as us in terms of their understanding of cause and effect. I strongly suspect that they believe that, if they deploy enough strident rhetoric, patronage and threats of the withdrawal of the same, this will somehow serve to greatly accelerate Orion/SLS without a single extra cent of money. Then commercial crew won't be necessary because NASA will have its own efficient, safe and completely affordable crew launcher for the ISS! (Yes, I know...)

You have to remember that when Bush set the end date for the Shuttle, the replacement was a NASA owned design. It may have been a bad design, but that's a subject for another thread. The plan was the shuttle replacement should have been flying missions to the ISS by now. There was no need to rush commercial crew at the time, since NASA had a plan for access to the ISS.

Of course, there were other programs that were cancelled when Constellation was started that probably also could have provided us access to the ISS. How far away was the Orbital Space Plane from being ready to launch ? We really cancelled a lot of technology development projects in the last decade that we could really use today.

[Hauerg]

Found an incredible statment here:

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/US_to_Stop_Using_Soyuz_Spacecraft_Invest_in_Domestic_Private_Space_Industry_999.html

They are putting the blame on Obama and his administration for not full funding Commercial Crew!

[Chris Bergin]

That site is a bit dodgy. Says "According to the Washington Post" and then RIA as the source. And a Soyuz 2 as the image....hehe!

[ncb1397]

From the article:

"While the Russian Soyuz is a highly reliable, safe, and veteran spacecraft (more so than any other currently-operational spacecraft), the fact that no human transportation redundancy to the ISS currently exists is a lesson the Columbia accident of 2003 should have prevented."

That truly sums up the situation, and reinforces the head scratching a lot of us do whenever Congress drags their heals on the Commercial Crew program.  Do they LIKE the U.S. being dependent on Putin's Russia?  Do they NOT TRUST America's aerospace industry?  I haven't heard a rational response from Congress on this yet...

This is purely opinion on my part but I don't think politicians work on the same level as us in terms of their understanding of cause and effect. I strongly suspect that they believe that, if they deploy enough strident rhetoric, patronage and threats of the withdrawal of the same, this will somehow serve to greatly accelerate Orion/SLS without a single extra cent of money. Then commercial crew won't be necessary because NASA will have its own efficient, safe and completely affordable crew launcher for the ISS! (Yes, I know...)

Maybe they simply don't support ISS and consider human transporation to LEO an architecture to nowhere. We can't operate the ISS without the Russians and the Russians are saying they are pulling out 3 years after Commercial Crew capability. That and partnering with the Russians is about as popular as child abuse at this point in time.

You are presuming support for ISS axiomatically, which of course leads to a logical discrepancy if someone doesn't support new manned systems to the ISS.

edit: Actually, on second thought. The funding was intended to force a down-select(so 4 crew vehicles aren't being developed at the same time which some might consider extravagant) and for the most part had nothing to do with support for ISS in general. Congress, who holds the purse strings, wanted to save some money. That the administration delayed the program rather than trim non-committed competitors(you know who they are) is a different matter.

[clongton]

Found an incredible statment here:

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/US_to_Stop_Using_Soyuz_Spacecraft_Invest_in_Domestic_Private_Space_Industry_999.html

They are putting the blame on Obama and his administration for not full funding Commercial Crew!

Must have been written by a congressman covering his/her butt.

[Coastal Ron]

Found an incredible statment here:

http://www.space-travel.com/reports/US_to_Stop_Using_Soyuz_Spacecraft_Invest_in_Domestic_Private_Space_Industry_999.html

They are putting the blame on Obama and his administration for not full funding Commercial Crew!

Must have been written by a congressman covering his/her butt.

Actually, it's Russian.  The byline says:

by Staff Writers
Moscow (RIA Novosti)

But yes, funny (as in "odd") how some U.S. politicians would be in agreement with Russia on the U.S. Commercial Crew program...

[woods170]

That site is a bit dodgy...

I see you are a master of the British art of understatement.

[rcoppola]

ISS will continue well past 2020. At least until 2024 and possibly 2028.

Here's one article in the affirmative: http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=530860

That means we could see commercial vehicles  servicing the ISS for 8 - 10 years. This should give ample time for other LEO destinations and capabilities to emerge and create a real commercial market. I truly think this program will go down as one of NASA's greatest enabling achievements.

IMO, once Dragon & DC (my choice) begin these services, a huge amount of interest from other countries (and companies) will propel this nascent industry. That these vehicles will have been certified by NASA and will launch with at least one Russian Cosmonaut per mission, will lend a lot of credibility to these commercial systems. The mission operations experience SpaceX and SNC will obtain will be monumental and leveraged in ways we may not even be thinking about yet.

Heading into the later part of this decade with SLS, DC and Dragon all operational? The possibilities are endless. The likes of which we haven't seen before.

All I have to say is...Thanks NASA. I know I don't always say it and yes I get frustrated with you but...well, thanks for this one. You've made us all very proud and extremely excited.