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Aug 22, 2019
Business News: Boeing spacecraft astronauts see new frontier for commercial space
HOUSTON
(Reuters) - A crew of veteran U.S. astronauts and aviators are training
in Houston for a manned mission to the International Space Station
aboard Boeing’s new Starliner spacecraft, which could also be used to
take tourists into space on future missions.
NASA
Commercial Crew astronauts Sunita Williams and Josh Cassada are seen
lowered into the water at NASA's Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory (NBL)
training facility near the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, U.S.,
July 1, 2019. REUTERS/Mike Blake
The
Boeing Starliner mission was originally scheduled for this month, but
that has been delayed to at least the end of the year or into 2020 due
to technical issues and amid a shakeup in the top echelons of the space
agency.
Boeing (BA.N)
and rival Elon Musk’s SpaceX are competing with each other to become
the first private company to resume human space flight from U.S. soil
after the space shuttle program ended in 2011.
The companies,
with cutting-edge technology, are among those poised to benefit most
from the enormous growth opportunities many see in the world’s
burgeoning commercial space industry.
NASA has been relying for
years on Russian rockets and spacecraft to transport personnel to the
space station. The $100 billion science and engineering laboratory,
orbiting 250 miles (400 km) above Earth, has been permanently staffed by
rotating crews of astronauts and cosmonauts since November 2000.
NASA
is paying SpaceX and Boeing nearly $7 billion combined to build
rocket-and-capsule launch systems for ferrying astronauts to the space
station.
Reuters was given rare access at Houston’s Johnson Space
Center to NASA astronauts Nicole Mann and Mike Fincke, and Boeing
astronaut and test pilot Christopher Ferguson, who will crew the ISS
mission, along with other astronauts training for future missions.
The
exercises included training underwater to simulate space walks,
responding to emergencies aboard the space station, and practicing
docking maneuvers on a flight simulator.
Here’s a closer look at the three astronauts training for the ISS flight.
FERGUSON LEADS MISSION
Ferguson,
a former NASA astronaut and retired U.S. Navy captain, who helped
design the way the crew interacts with the automated Boeing CST-100
Starliner, will lead its maiden voyage.
“They (Boeing) knew how
big it was going to be, how it was going to be powered, but they really
hadn’t thought a whole lot about what the inside would be and how does
the crew interface with the vehicle that’s designed to operate
automatically,” said Ferguson.
The design “is a great
compromise between keeping it minimalistic yet at the same time giving
the pilot the ability to understand where am I, where do I need to be,
how am I going to get there, if things go wrong how do I fix them.”
“It comes down to watching (the spacecraft’s) behavior,” said Ferguson,
who led NASA’s final space shuttle mission in 2011 and spent more than
40 days in space over his career. “We just want to make sure it doesn’t
throw us a curve ball.”
FIRST TRIP FOR NAVY COMBAT PILOT
It
will be the first trip into space for Mann, 42, a former Navy combat
pilot, who said she was looking forward to the excitement a fresh
American-based crewed mission to space would create among a young
generation that did not grow up watching Apollo and shuttle missions as
their parents and grandparents did.
“And so I think it’s
going to be huge for Americans. It’s going to be huge for the younger
generation to see us launching from American soil, that we’re bringing
work and industry back to the United States.
“I think it’ll
open up a lot more jobs. It’ll open a lot more innovation for that young
generation. And there’s a big future of spaceflight in front of us.”
FINCKE - LAYING THE GROUNDWORK
The
Starliner mission will lay the groundwork for Boeing’s commercial
flight program, which includes carrying passenger and cargoes to the
space station, and taking tourists into space, said Fincke, a veteran
NASA astronaut who has completed three space flights.
“So
far, we’ve only had about 500 people go to space. Hopefully, in the next
10 years, we’ll go from 500 to 5,000. And in the next 20 years, maybe
50,000 or more,” said the former U.S. Air Force colonel who served as
science officer and flight engineer on a six-month space station
mission.CAPTURE THE FLAG
Eight years ago, when Ferguson led
NASA’s last space shuttle mission, he left an American flag aboard the
space station for the next crew of U.S. astronauts to collect and bring
home. He likes the idea of getting it back himself, traveling on the
first manned commercial U.S. spacecraft.
“Sort of like a grown-up version of capture the flag,” Ferguson said.
And if SpaceX got there first?
“I
would be very happy for them. Who brings it home is unimportant, but
the fact that it gets home is most important. And I would be very proud
of Doug (Hurley, a NASA astronaut training to fly aboard SpaceX’s Crew
Dragon space craft), although he’s going to lose.”
Reporting by Collin Eaton in Houston; editing by Bill Tarrant and Tom Brown
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