It takes about nine minutes to go from the Kennedy Space Center to Earth orbit, but it’s been almost nine years since anybody took that route to space.
About time
Back when President Obama turned part of NASA’s traditional domain over to private enterprise, the wait for the next U.S. launch of astronauts wasn’t supposed to be too long—maybe just three years—although the idea of any gap was upsetting.
Nicole Stott, a crew member on the final flight of the shuttle Discovery, recalled her thoughts on exiting that orbiter after its March 9, 2011, landing in a phone interview on Tuesday: “Can’t we please roll this back to the Orbiter Processing Facility and get this ready again?”
But Congress consistently underfunded NASA’s commercial-space efforts in favor of the agency’s Space Launch System heavy-lift rocket and its Orion deep-space capsule.
SpaceX had the luxury of picking the best lessons learned from NASA and the private sector.”
Keith Cowling, NASA Watch
“The…
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Source : fastcompany.com
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