Points Out Russia Charges US $450 Million/Year For Crew Transport

NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver spoke last week at the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She called on Congress to look carefully at bang-for-buck before making arbitrary cuts in NASA's budget for developing commercial spaceflight.

The Obama administration has budgeted $850 million in the current fiscal year to let NASA help develop private-sector alternatives from four companies. The Senate wants to cut that by 63 percent, the House by 41 percent.

Garver (pictured) noted that the Russians now charge $50 million per seat to transport US astronauts to the International Space Station. Reuters reports that Garver observed, "One additional year of buying this service from the Russians will cost the United States about $450 million. If you take the Senate ($500 million) mark, take it up $350 million, giving it to US companies today to get to our requested amount, it gives us the best chance to be able to replace this foreign government service by 2016. That's the choice."

The Russian space agency has tripled what it charges the US per-seat for Soyuz transport since the date for the end of the US shuttle program was announced.

FMI: www.nasa.gov