What WILL $424 million get you if you are NASA? Well this pretty chunk of change will get you, according to a recent AP article:
- training and transporting of six astronauts to and from the ISS in 2016 and the first half of 2017 in Russian Soyuz spacecraft.
hummm something tells me that the Russians are not as desperate for Uncle Sam script as they once might have once been.....
Oh and look, I know NASA would have a MUCH larger bill if a country came to us and said hey we would like to send six of our spacemen to the ISS aboard the Shuttle....what is the charges? But really I am going to do a NETWORK here and I encourage others to do the same!
Now I could turn this into a big rant....but I won't, but if this is not a case of just not looking ahead and planning for the future.....mumble mumble mumble
I am pulling my punches here a bit but NASA chief Charles Bolden is pointing a finger right at congress, blaming our present dilemma on Congress' failure to support the President's call for a program that would have more co-operation between the government and private industry calling the initiative the "Commercial Crew Program" which may in fact allowed the US' lifting program to flourish instead of forcing NASA to extend its' contract with Russia.
There is more that I think you will find interesting in this recent AFP article
