Bolden has acknowledged in congressional testimony, most recently in an April 25 hearing of the Senate Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee, that without a fully funded Commercial Crew Program, the agency may have to pick only one aspiring provider to fund.
That could happen as soon as next summer, when NASA plans to award the next round of Commercial Crew funding.
They make it sound like he’s issuing a threat when that’s exactly what Congress wants them to do. If I were Bolden (or rather, if I were administrator — obviously if I were Bolden I’d do what Bolden would do), I’d be figuring out a way to avoid the down select with a smaller budget. But if I were administrator, a lot of things would be done differently.
The problem is that, like most “climate science,” we don’t really know. But if it is an issue, I suspect that it’s a worse one for Virgin than for XCOR, at least based on pictures of the plumes of both, and the solution to it would be LOX/hydrogen.
…is looking for input on his upcoming Congressional testimony. Here’s my suggestion: Tell them that they worry too much about mission safety, and too little about actually opening up and developing space.