SpaceX Founder Elon Musk: U.S. Needs Alternative To Dependence On Russia 'As Soon As Possible"

The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved a NASA budget that includes $500 million for the development of commercial crew capacity for transporting U.S. and other astronauts to the ISS.

The summary of the appropriation, provided by the committee, indicates that NASA is funded at $17.9 billion, a reduction of $509 million or 2.8 percent from the FY2011 enacted level. The bill "preserves (the) NASA portfolio balanced among science, aeronautics, technology and human space flight investments, including the Orion Multipurpose Crew Vehicle, the heavy lift Space Launch System, and commercial crew development. It also provides funds to enable a 2018 launch of the James Webb Space Telescope."

SpaceX Founder Elon Musk issued a statement following the vote saying that the United States needs "alternatives for carrying American astronauts, and we need them as soon as possible. The investments made by this legislation will accelerate efforts to return America to launching astronauts and reduce our dependency on Russia. With the failure of the Soyuz booster last month, this effort is more important than ever.

Elon Musk SpaceX Photo

"NASA's Commercial Crew Development Program is the most fiscally responsible means to rapidly advance human spaceflight. It has protected taxpayer dollars with fixed-price, pay-for-performance contracts. It fosters competition that forces companies to compete on reliability, capability and cost. And it leverages private investment - making taxpayer dollars go further.

"SpaceX applauds Chairwoman Mikulski, Ranking Member Hutchison and the Members of the Subcommittee for recognizing the value of the program. With the support of Congress, American companies will soon be able to end the flow of tax dollars to Russia and instead invest in high-tech American jobs."

SpaceX is one of four companies that have received funding under the CCDev program.

FMI: http://appropriations.senate.gov, www.spacex.com