Taxi Roscosmos 70Mil Vs Spacex 20Mil

Russian President Vladimir Putin

Americans will be riding with the Russian cosmonauts to space a little longer as a contract extension with the Russian Space Agency (Roscosmos), paying another 424 million to allow US astronauts to fly aboard the Soyuz spacecraft through 2016, and to return them or provide rescue services through 2017. Due to federal budget cuts implemented by the United States Congress, NASA has not had the ability to send astronauts to the International Space Station since the space shuttle fleet was retired in 2011, requiring contracts with the Russian space agency to ferry Americans to space to the 100-billion International Space Station. SpaceX, Boeing/ULA, or Sierra Nevada/ULA have been delayed from their original 2015 anticipated start date due to Congressional budget cuts to the NASA Commercial Crew program assisting the private firms to meet NASA human regulatory flight standards and development milestones. The Russian contract is valued at 70-million per US astronaut for the taxi ride to low earth orbit, expensive when compared to the 20 to 25 million per astronaut by SpaceX. The NASA-Roscosmos contract extension puts more American taxpayer funds into the Russian space program at a time the American private sector is being cut to provide the similar capability, if not better. NASA Administrator Charles Bolden called upon Congress to approve President Obama's budget request of 821 million for NASA's commercial crew program or risk further delays in getting NASA astronauts off the ground on American-made spacecraft. That's a 300 million increase from funding approved in fiscal year 2013, but closer to the 850 million NASA originally asked. More from "BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK", (VIDEO).

Credit: unexplored-earth.blogspot.com