NASA sets launch date for SpaceX U.S. manned mission to space station

By Joey Roulette

 

FILE PHOTO: A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, carrying the Crew Dragon astronaut capsule, lifts off on an in-flight abort test , a key milestone before flying humans in 2020 under NASA's commercial crew program, from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. January 19, 2020. REUTERS/Joe Skipper

 

(Reuters) - NASA on Friday set a launch date of May 27 for its first astronaut mission from U.S. soil in nearly ten years.

 

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted that billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk's space company, SpaceX, will send two NASA astronauts to the International Space Station aboard its Falcon 9 rocket from Florida - marking the company's first mission carrying humans aboard.

 

"BREAKING: On May 27, @NASA will once again launch American astronauts on American rockets from American soil!" Bridenstine wrote on Twitter. 

 

The U.S. space agency had previously said the mission, in which NASA astronauts Bob Behnken, 48, and Doug Hurley, 52 will ride SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule to the space station, would launch sometime in May.

 

As with most high-profile missions, the new date could slip. If all goes as planned, the mission would mark the first time NASA launches its astronauts from U.S. soil since the 2011 retirement of the space shuttle.

 

The space agency has since relied on Russia's space program to ferry astronauts to the space station.

 

A decade in the making, next month's mission is the final test for Crew Dragon before regularly flying humans for NASA under its Commercial Crew Program, a public-private initiative. Boeing Co <BA.N> is developing its competing Starliner astronaut taxi as the agency's second ride to space.

 

The agency is mulling whether to extend Behnken and Hurley's stay aboard the space station from a week as originally planned to up to six months in order to ensure U.S. astronauts are staffed on the station continuously. 

 

Timelines for the crew program have been pushed back by years, with the first crew launch originally slated for early 2017.

 

The development delays with Crew Dragon and Boeing's Starliner have forced NASA to buy more crew seats from Russia's space agency, an increasingly costly expense as Moscow scales its own Soyuz program back to just two missions a year. 

 

(Reporting by Joey Roulette; Editing by Greg Mitchell and Bill Berkrot)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-04-18

 

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Good luck to the brave people flying in that one.

Still safer than the Boeing version though.

6 minutes ago, rooster59 said:

(Reuters) - NASA on Friday set a launch date of May 27 for its first astronaut mission from U.S. soil in nearly ten years.

 

How about the manned mission to Mars , hope that's still going ahead  and that I get to see it

(well see it on TV)

Fingers crossed

This will be pretty much make or break for SpaceX - they need to raise more funding for their Starlink constellation so cannot afford any mistakes here

Good luck safe flight!!!

2 hours ago, rooster59 said:

NASA sets launch date for SpaceX U.S. manned mission to space station

I LOVE to see stories like this, especially now when the world is so focused on the virus.

 

On a 'Big Picture' focus, I think humanity always does better when it is reaching for the horizon and always falls short when it stops dreaming big; it is good to see that 'Frontier Spirit' still active, especially in these dark times.

 

I have long been a fan of Elon Musk, and so I am pleased that Space-X is doing well, but I think the most significant thing is that it is the private sector leading the way now. It made sense in the early days to have government(s) take the lead in space exploration as they were the only entities that had the funds/resources available, but I think the current shift to the private sector both makes sense and is timely. However, it leads to some... interesting questions that will need answers sooner rather than later.

 

Who owns space? A seemingly simple question, but... If Space X goes to the moon and sets up a permanent base there, do they own the moon? Do they own the land that their base is located on? Do they pay tax? If so, to whom? Can they claim vast swathes of the moon? if so, where would they register that claim? Who would enforce that claim? Would that claim be recognized by... China? The US, Russia? India? Somalia? Would a moon base be entitled to self-protection? Would the UN Declaration of Human Rights apply there? Would any country-specific law apply there? The obvious answers to the questions posed would be to hand the issue over to the UN for discussion and decision, but would the believers in 'Black Helicopters', 'World Domination', Mormons, and those that think the 'International House Of Pancakes' is an alien front accept it? And, if not the UN, then who will decide these questions? Finally, there is a real impetus to find a consensus on these questions and codify them somehow; if there are no rules/laws, what do you think will occur when the inevitable 'rubber meets the road'? It'll be either peaceful agreement or some form of space war; I vote for peaceful agreement.

 

I think that the above questions are fascinating (why yes, I am a Post-Grad Political Science geek and a long-term watcher of both Star Trek and Star Wars. How did you know?), but the real crunch will likely be who owns the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. Pretty much every Sci-Fi book I have ever read on Earth's early development in Space has chapters and chapters on how humanity develops the Asteroid Belt, and Sci-Fi books are remarkable predictors of future events like these.

 

These are perhaps questions for another day, but these are questions that will need to be answered sooner than one might think...

 

Go space exploration, go!

 

PS A bonus question if anyone wants to take a crack at it...

 

If you were offered a chance to be among the first colonists to Mars, but that it'd be a one-way trip, would you go?

 

 

 

Edited April 18, 20206 yr by Samui Bodoh
Lack of Coffee

Maybe the asteroid belt is where space pirates will flourish for a while. Some time after that, perhaps historical novels will be written about it. Sadly, none of us living now will be around to read them. I still hope to watch the first crew land on Mars, as a counterpoint to us as kids watching the moon landings on B&W TV.

4 hours ago, Samui Bodoh said:

 

If you were offered a chance to be among the first colonists to Mars, but that it'd be a one-way trip, would you go?

No. I’ve done a lit of crazy, dangerous and stupid things in my life but I think I’m going to have to pass on that one, thank you very much. I’m too old anyway, but even if I were young enough I still wouldn’t do it. 

Russia is upset they lose revenues from the US with SpaceX doing ISS launches. Musk responded that he can reuse his rockets up to 8 times while Russia can't recycle once - Hello free enterprise.

6 hours ago, johng said:

 

How about the manned mission to Mars , hope that's still going ahead  and that I get to see it

(well see it on TV)

Stanley Kubrick is working on that as we speak.

5 hours ago, Samui Bodoh said:

Who owns space? A seemingly simple question, but...

Simple question with a simple answer. Van Allen

1 hour ago, BeltAndRoad said:

Stanley Kubrick is working on that as we speak.

He did a stunning job  with the moon landings I'm sure the Mars landing will be even better !

( PS he didn't really die in 1999 ) ????

6 hours ago, Samui Bodoh said:

If you were offered a chance to be among the first colonists to Mars, but that it'd be a one-way trip, would you go?

 

Yes,  my wife is in full agreement too ????

4 minutes ago, johng said:

He did a stunning job  with the moon landings I'm sure the Mars landing will be even better !

( PS he didn't really die in 1999 ) ????

that's what i keep saying ????

5 minutes ago, johng said:

He did a stunning job  with the moon landings I'm sure the Mars landing will be even better !

( PS he didn't really die in 1999 ) ????

It's gone quiet here. I think they are all frantically researching the Van Allen radiation belts and preparing their long winded pseudo responses.

Guaranteed Covid-19 free?