Letter: Support Urged for Commercial Crew Program

Group Letter To Congress and the Obama Administration Regarding NASA’s Commercial Crew Program
“We, the undersigned space leaders, are strong supporters of human spaceflight. Among us are former NASA astronauts, executives, and advisors, CEOs and directors of firms large and small, space scientists, space journalists, and others. We write today to urge you to expedite plans to use commercial companies to carry crew to the Space Station. This effort is critical to the health of the Nation’s human spaceflight efforts. More specifically, we are alarmed by possible congressional budget cuts to the $850M FY2012 budget request for NASA’s Commercial Crew program–the fastest paced and surest effort to restore US human access to orbit. We are also alarmed by changes to NASA’s planned contracting and oversight methods that threaten to complicate and slow progress toward developing US capabilities to put American astronauts in orbit via the Commercial Crew program.”