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It Will Be Four Years Before There's an American Launch, NASA Chief Says

"It is unacceptable that we don't currently have an American capability to launch our own astronauts," the NASA chief says.
Image: A Soyuz transportation flight that American astronauts will soon be aboard. Wikimedia.

"It is unacceptable that we don't currently have an American capability to launch our own astronauts," NASA Administrator Charles Bolden wrote yesterday in a forceful statement.

Back in March, after the so-called sequestration bill had been passed by Congress, but before it was signed by the president, Bolden warned that the cuts would have a devastating impact on NASA operations.

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"The sequester could further delay the restarting of human space launches from U.S. soil, push back our next generation space vehicles, hold up development of new space technologies, and jeopardize our space-based, Earth observing capabilities," he wrote in a blog post on March 3rd. Obama had requested enough funding in the budget to get NASA back to domestic launches by 2014, but Congress axed it.

Now, the sequester has come to pass, and this is what it sounds like when the nation's chief rocket scientist/space bureaucrat fumes:

If NASA had received the President's requested funding for this plan, we would not have been forced to recently sign a new contract with Roscosmos for Soyuz transportation flights.

Because the funding for the President's plan has been significantly reduced, we now won’t be able to support American launches until 2017. Even this delayed availability will be in question if Congress does not fully support the President's fiscal year 2014 request for our Commercial Crew Program, forcing us once again to extend our contract with the Russians. Further delays in our Commercial Crew Program and its impact on our human spaceflight program are unacceptable.

You have to read between the lines a bit to get that seething feeling, but trust me, it's there—I have read a lot of governmental releases, and this one is downright fiery. Especially for a NASA scientist.

But Bolden's got every right to be steamed. A seat on the Russian transportation rocket costs $70 million a pop, and then there's the matter that it's downright embarrassing that we've still got to hitch a ride with the Russians just a couple decades after we allegedly won that whole space race thing. Boldren goes on to assert that NASA is a powerful economic engine and job creator, and makes the case for expanding funding for everyone's favorite government agency.

"That’s why we need the full $821 million the President has requested in next year’s budget to keep us on track to meet our 2017 deadline and bring these launches back to the United States," Boldren says, and he's got a point. Of all things, NASA space travel should probably be made in America.