We spent two decades and tens of billions of dollars to build the international space station,” Hall said. “I’m beyond frustrated to know that our space station program is now dependent on launch systems to do the job that NASA ought to be doing. Congress has been pretty clear that NASA is not to rely totally on these commercial proposals. I hear excuses and delay after delay for the supposedly simple act of delivering cargo to the space station. NASA has spent $1.6 billion on this effort so far and the nation doesn’t have very much to show for it.”
Hall pointed out that when NASA selected SpaceX in 2006 to develop a space station cargo ship, its first flight to the space station was expected in June 2009. Dragon ended up debuting on Dec. 9, 2010, completing a test milestone originally proposed for September 2008.
No comments:
Post a Comment