2 Companies Will take Americans to Space Station

Georgia Lazaroni 11/4/14

Earth Science 1H

Chang, Kenneth. "2 Companies Will Take Americans to Space Station."

The New York   Times. The New York Times, 16 Sept. 2014. Web. 04 Nov. 2014.

After many private companies submitted their requests for a contract with NASA to send American to the ISS, the two winners, Boeing and the Space Exploration Technologies Company (SpaceX) were announced the winners. This marks a new era in NASA’s human spaceflight program, as it is beginning to use private companies now, as well as ending the reliance on Russian transportation. Since NASA ended using space shuttles in 2011, american astronauts have not been able to get into orbit any other way than with Russian technology, at the cost of $70 millions per seat. By involving private companies, we can finally end this dependance. Under the contracts with Boeing (for $4.2 billion) and SpaceX ($2.6 billion), each company must pass NASA’s space safety requirements and provide the shuttle. In return, NASA promises each company at least two missions, and up to twice a year from 2017- 2023. Since the ultimate goal of this experience is to encourage an industry for commercial space travel, Boeing’s fifth seat on its Atlas 5 (a more expensive shuttle than SpaceX’s Dragon 2), could be bought by a tourist, and will be aggressive is making sure this happens.

This article brings up the popular topic of commercial space travel. In reaching out of just traditional government funding and approaching private companies, this is the first step into commercial space travel. Although it may seem a small feat for that now, it marks a new journey into private funding for space trips. This also ends symbolizes the end with our reliance of Russian spacecrafts, as it was becoming a politically uncomfortable arrangement after Russia’s annexation of crimea, and generally poor treatment toward the Ukraine. These events sparked anger in many Americans and it will ease the vulnerability shown by America if we are no longer dependant on them.

I felt this article was well written and relatively easy to comprehend, so long as it was read carefully. One aspect I was confused on, which was not explained in the article, is why Boeing’s contract is about 40% more, even though it is to do the exact same thing as SpaceX’s, just more expensive to build. Not only is the Atlas 5 more expensive, but it also uses Russian engineering, which is counter-intuitive to our non-dependency goal. I also don’t understand why the new private enterprises are better than the ‘hands on approach’ NASA has always used before, which got us to places like the moon in the first place. All in all, this article took a new perspective, which I was pleased to learn about.