Why NASA pays SpaceX and Boeing to fly astronauts to the…
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After the final flight of the Space Shuttle in July of 2011, the U.S.
could no longer send its astronauts into space. This was a problem. The
shuttle’s final act was to complete the International Space Station, the most ambitious human spaceflight project since Apollo.
Designed to last for decades, the ISS is the primary destination for
NASA’s astronauts. Without the shuttle, NASA’s only option was to buy
seats on Russia’s Soyuz spacecraft.
How much did NASA pay for Soyuz flights?
As of 2020, the cost of a single Soyuz seat had risen to $90 million,
and NASA had spent nearly $4 billion flying 70 astronauts to the ISS.
It was politically unpalatable for the U.S. to spend billions
of dollars supporting Russia’s aerospace industry instead of its own.
Fears had also grown about the reliability of Russia’s space program,
culminating with the 2018 emergency abort of a Soyuz carrying NASA astronaut Nick Hague.
Human spaceflight, despite its highest ideals, remains a powerful
statement of industrial and economic might. Of the 3 countries ever to
send humans into space — Russia, the U.S., and China — none have permanently
abandoned that capability. But for nine years, the nation that first
landed humans on the Moon has been unable to even launch them to Earth
orbit.
Why didn’t NASA build a replacement for the Space Shuttle?
NASA didn’t end up in this situation for a lack of trying. The agency initiated multiple Shuttle-replacement projects in the 1990s and 2000s — most notably, Constellation — but
these failed due to a variety of design, cost, and political problems.
Before the end of the shuttle program, NASA never had the necessary
political support to simultaneously fund the construction of the ISS,
develop a new human-capable spacecraft and rocket system, and continue
flying the Space Shuttle — which cost the space agency $3.5 billion per
year toward the end of its lifetime.
Anticipating the need for an alternative to send cargo and crews to
the ISS, NASA turned to the aerospace industry with a novel proposal:
what if NASA was a customer, instead of your boss? Perhaps the agency
would end up paying less in the long run, and end up jump-starting a
whole new industry.
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Original Post
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