After years of hitching a ride on Russian rockets, Americans are getting close to going there on American-made rockets and capsules. The Starliner was scheduled for this month but has been delayed to at least the end of the year.
SpaceX is also compete with its reusable Falcon rockets and Dragon supply capsules.
The Starship is due to take passengers to the International Space Station in 2020.
Ferguson, a former NASA astronaut and retired U.S. Navy captain, who helped design the way the crew interacts with the automated Boeing CST-100 Starliner, will lead its maiden voyage.
NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Mike Fincke will be part of the crew. It will be Mann’s first trip into space and she’s a fomer Navy combat pilot. Fincke has been into space 3 times.
And if SpaceX got there first?
“I would be very happy for them. Who brings it home is unimportant, but the fact that it gets home is most important. And I would be very proud of Doug (Hurley, a NASA astronaut training to fly aboard SpaceX’s Crew Dragon space craft), although he’s going to lose.”
More @ Boeing spacecraft astronauts see new frontier for commercial space - Reuters
A personal comment here. The media really isn’t doing a very good job of covering the ISS or efforts to return American equipment to space. We are not just learning what life in zero gravity is like, but many experiments will have amazing uses here on earth. This is not money being thrown away on foolish efforts. It is a vital investment in the future of Mankind.
