Astronauts to ‘blaze new trail’

Combined, they have spent more than a year in space, orbited the Earth hundreds of times and travelled tens of millions of kilometres. They are decorated military veterans, fighter jet and helicopter pilots turned Nasa astronauts, who have all flown to the International Space Station.

Now they are going back, becoming the first astronauts to launch to space from US soil since the space shuttle was retired in 2011, Nasa Administrator Charles Bolden announced yesterday. But unlike their previous launches, which were aboard either the space shuttle or a Russian rocket, the four astronauts — Sunita Williams, Robert Behnken, Eric Boe and Douglas Hurley— will fly next on commercially owned and operated spacecraft, built by contractors, not Nasa.

In a dramatic departure, Nasa last year awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX to ferry astronauts to the space station, the orbital laboratory about 402 kilometres above the Earth’s surface. By outsourcing the missions to low-Earth orbit, Nasa says it can then focus on its main goal: flying to deep space, even Mars.

‘‘These distinguished, veteran astronauts are blazing a new trail, a trail that will one day land them in the history books and Americans on the surface of Mars,’’ Bolden said.

Since the shuttle’s retirement, the US has been forced to rely on Russia to take its astronauts to the station, an expensive and troubling arrangement that now costs US$76 million (NZ$113m) a seat.

By relying on contractors, the US will save nearly US$20m a flight, Bolden said, and allow more astronauts to fly at a time.

The first flight, expected to occur near the end of 2017, had been pushed back from this year because of funding delays. But now even the revised timeline is in jeopardy, some fear, after Congress has slashed US$300m from the programme.

Bolden has blasted Congress, saying that ‘‘by gutting this programme and turning our backs on US industry, Nasa will be forced to continue to rely on Russia to get its astronauts to space — and continue to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the Russian economy rather than our own.’’ There are also renewed concerns about whether it is prudent to rely so heavily on contractors. Both Orbital Sciences ( now Orbital ATK) and SpaceX, the companies used by Nasa to fly food and supplies to the station on unmanned missions, have had rockets explode in recent months.

Despite the explosions, though, Nasa has said it remains confident in the companies and is moving ahead with its plans.

The astronauts chosen by Nasa to fly on the coming missions are among the agency’s best and most experienced.

Sunita Williams is a Navy captain and has spent a total of 322 days in space over two missions.

Douglas Hurley is a retired Marine Corps colonel who has flown two space shuttle missions to the space station and has spent a total of 683 hours in space.

Eric Boe is a colonel in the Air Force who, on his first flight to the space station in 2008, helped expand the station’s living quarters and delivered a new bathroom, kitchen and exercise machine. During his second mission, the last for space shuttle Discovery, he orbited Earth 202 times.

Robert Behnken is also an Air Force colonelwho has done six spacewalks.

Washington Post