As the Senate Commerce Committee begins work on a 2010 NASA authorization bill, science and space subcommittee chairman Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is questioning whether $6 billion the U.S. space agency is seeking for developing a commercial crew taxis might be better spent on a heavy-lift rocket that could take humans beyond low Earth orbit.
Nelson told a NASA Kennedy Space Center-area audience March 19 that he expects U.S. President Barack Obama to “revamp his budget” and set specific goals for the nation’s human spaceflight program when he visits Florida April 15 to talk space.
March 21st, 2010
Sen. Nelson Floats Alternate Use for NASA Commercial Crew Money Space News
May 9th, 2005
t/Space Offers an Option for Closing Shuttle, CEV Gap Space News
Transformational Space Corp. (t/Space), a company founded in response to the new U.S. vision for space exploration, thinks it can help NASA close the gap between retiring the space shuttle fleet and fielding a Crew Exploration Vehicle (CEV) to carry astronauts beyond Earth’s orbit. The Reston, Va.-based company already already convinced NASA to give it $6 million in exchange for advice on how the U.S. space agency can reach beyond the traditional aerospace industry to answer a presidential call to return to the Moon by 2020. Now t/Space is hoping to convince NASA to part with $400 million in exchange for an Earth-to-orbit crew transfer vehicle, which company executives say they can have ready in 2008.
November 8th, 2004
Exclusive: Rules Set for $50 Million ‘America Space News
Anyone who wants to follow in the shoes of Burt Rutan and win the next big space prize will have to build a spacecraft capable of taking a crew of no fewer than five people to an altitude of 400 kilometers and complete two orbits of the Earth at that altitude. Then they have to repeat that accomplishment within 60 days. While the first flight must demonstrate only the ability to carry five crew members, the winner will have to take at least five people up on the second flight. And one more thing. They have to do it by Jan. 10, 2010.
April 12th, 2004
NASA’s Search for Moon-to-Mars Rockets Has Begun Space News
NASA wants to have a better idea by year
January 12th, 2004
How Lessons from Mars Polar Lander Helped Spirit Space News
Current and former NASA officials gave much of the credit for the successful landing of the Spirit Mars rover Jan. 5 to the lessons drawn from a recent pair of failed attempts to explore the red planet up close. Among those lessons is that the budgets for such complex undertakings must be flexible enough to accommodate the inevitable problems that crop up during development. But while setting arbitrary cost caps on missions can be a recipe for failure, bigger budgets do not guarantee success, they said.
May 19th, 2003
Innovative Wing Design Could Soar in Martian Skies Space News
A team of undergraduate engineering students from the University of Kentucky scored a partial success in a recent test of a prototype Mars exploration aircraft whose wings would inflate to take on their aerodynamic shape once within the thin martian atmosphere. Inflatable wings are seen as a promising solution for a vexing problem facing NASA engineers: building an aircraft that can be successfully unfurled or unfolded into its flight configuration after being stowed within the tight confines of a space capsule for the long journey to the red planet. The problem has twice abruptly halted NASA efforts to develop a glider or powered aircraft to explore Mars.