NASA orders its second commercial crew flight from Boeing

All three of these missions are planetary-science missions, housed in the only NASA division which visits worlds beyond our own. However, if Congress passes the spending bill, then NASA could be in for a treat. As a result, NASA could have the the 2016 budget exceed the budgets for at least half a decade before.

The commercial crew development receives $1.2 billion, as much funding as it will ever need in one year, in the proposed 2016 budget. As stated by Dreier, this is “a great budget” and anyone enthusiastic about space exploration should be pleased. Lockheed Martin designed and built the spacecraft and is responsible for testing, launch processing and mission operations.

“What we’ve done with the International Space Station is create an actual economy up in space”, MacDonald said. It’s believed to be the most likely source of extra-terrestrial life due to its sub-surface ocean. The bill directs NASA to send both an orbiter and lander to the Jovian moon before 2022. After finding water on Mars and getting an unprecedented look at Pluto earlier this year, the space agency just learned its budget for next year will be a healthy $19.3 billion.

And that is without mentioning the famed mission that everyone is expecting to Mars in the 2030s. Included in this year’s total is $3.27 billion for the agency to continue work on its new space launch system and Orion crew capsule, almost $400 million more than these programs received last year.

However, with the new budget, NASA will be able to turn its attention on one of its more urgent issues: the dependency on Russian Federation.

“Unfortunately, for five years now, the Congress, while incrementally increasing annual funding, has not adequately funded the Commercial Crew Program to return human spaceflight launches to American soil this year, as planned”, Charles Bolden, the head NASA administrator, wrote in an open letter regarding the renewed contract.

There’s also a section dedicated to the Russian Space Program, with a Soyuz module on display, as well as a Vanguard 1 satellite, the oldest man-made satellite (March 17, 1958) that is still in orbit today.

Roscosmos charges about $76 million per seat in a ride to the ISS; developing American ways to get there would cost about $58 million per seat. With roughly $1.2 billion on tap, the agency has the ability to move forward with allowing companies like SpaceX to manufacture and operate spacecraft bound for the ISS.