The White House request for $821 million to support the commercial crew program was trimmed to $696 million.
So far, the private space experiment has worked pretty well. Two companies, SpaceX and Orbital, are delivering cargo to the International Space Station using hardware they designed without strict NASA oversight. The effort to replace the space shuttle with a new private-sector vehicle is also going well, with the three companies hitting milestones and setting dates for flights. But the true test of how much NASA can really change from a spacecraft developer to a customer of flight services will start this year.
Relying on private companies to make and operate spacecraft is intended to break the bureaucratic logjams that plague major government programs like NASA, where delays and cost increases are expected. And the United States needs a way to get people into orbit soon. After all, it costs $70 million per seat to fly astronauts in the Russian Soyuz spacecraft, as NASA has been doing since the space shuttle retired in 2011. But there are reasons to fear that NASA's private space program could morph into the same old big-government program. This year is the tipping point—and it started off with a thud, as Congress denied funding to the new way and upheld the status quo SLS program with a major cash infusion.
Funding "One and a Half" Companies
The budget news does not bode well for the effort. Any reduction is bad news for the three companies vying for the next contract, which is called Commercial Crew Transportation Capability (CCtCAP). This next stage is intended not just for development of a spacecraft, but to actually send them into orbit. It calls for at least one flight test to verify the spacecraft can dock to the International Space Station, plus two to six manned missions carrying NASA astronauts to meet its crew rotation requirements.
Here's catch No. 1: NASA has not decided if it can fund more than one program. It intends to cut one of the three in what government procurement people call a "downselect." It's a grim and tense time for the companies, which are laboring to meet mission milestones as NASA deliberates. NASA officials, including director Charles Bolden, have spoken publicly about funding two companies, or funding one and partially funding another (what Bolden calls "funding one and a half companies"). The decision should come sometime this summer.
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