Rand Simberg Says Congress Threatens To Anchor Private Spaceflight With Extra Costs
With first SpaceX and now Orbital Sciences cargo deliveries to the International Space Station, it's been an exciting decade so far for commercial spaceflight, which has shown the way to dramatic reductions in cost over the traditional NASA approach. With the roll out a couple weeks ago of SpaceX's new manned version of its Dragon capsule, we seem well on track to replacing the costly Russian Soyuz flights (currently our only means of getting Americans to orbit) with much cheaper ones on American vehicles. This is particularly important, given Russia's recent threats to cut off our access to the station. But Congress, in its perversity and rent seeking, seems determined to keep us dependent on them. Rand Simberg details this problematic agenda.