Despite the success of NASA over the years, there is still one facet of their operation that many see as a weakness. For the past five years, the U.S has been depending on Russia to carry American astronauts to and from the ISS. Now, with the help of SpaceX and Boeing, the U.S space agency thinks they are ready for some independence.
NASA TO GET BACK ON TRACK WITH SPACEX AND BOEING
In the year 2017, SpaceX and Boeing are are both on track to launch astronauts to the ISS. Meanwhile, pouting on the sidelines is NASA. Since they were grounded in 2011, NASA has lost their domestic crew launch capability. Because of these, they’ve been reliant on Russia to help them go back and forth from the ISS. Seeing as the U.S is supposed to be the model of space exploration, this can’t sit well with them. Now, they have reached out to private companies SpaceX and Boeing in an attempt to restart their domestic launch capabilities.
RUSSIA MAY BE OBSOLETE BY 2017
NASA want’s SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule to be ready by the end of 2017. Hopefully by then, the space agency will have astronaut taxis of their own, making Russia obsolete in the eyes of the U.S Before this can happen, though, SpaceX and Boeing need to successfully complete two demonstration flights. The first being unmanned, and the second with a full crew. Private space companies have been extremely busy the past few years. One could argue that their accomplishments have been more impressive than that of NASA, but seeing as the U.S government cut funding, it’s not a fair comparison. Russia isn’t exactly rolling in money either, so it’s probably best for all parties involved to go their separate ways.
RUSSIAN SPACE PROGRAM UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Despite having big plans for the future of space exploration, it looks like Russia’s space program will remain under construction for the time being. The highly anticipated completion of the cosmodrome will be finished in 2107 and see it’s maiden flight that year. However, after that , nothing grand is really planned until the end of 2023. The program has bee a fairly heavy burden on the country’s economy and the budget is only getting less each year. Until Russian’s can figure out how to support their big ideas, it looks like they will remain grounded.
