The four astronauts aboard NASA's final space shuttle mission returned to Houston yesterday, July 21, to receive a hero's welcome. While huge lay-offs are ensuing at NASA, America's exploration of space is expected to soon get a big boost.

Captain Gregory C. Johnson is a West Seattle High School graduate, class of '72, and retired astronaut who piloted the Atlantis Space Shuttle May, 2009, on a successful mission to repair the Hubble Space Telescope. He told the West Seattle Herald by phone today that NASA and private companies will continue to reach for the sky, without delay. He is currently a research pilot and Deputy Manager of Aircraft Operations at Ellington Field, involving all the airplanes that NASA has in the Houston area.

"NASA is scaling back the numbers of Shuttle training airplanes, the ones that land the Shuttle," he said. "We have about 32 airplanes now and we'll be going in the 25 range. NASA will now focus on exploration of the Moon, asteroids, and Mars, while four or five commercial companies are bidding to take our astronauts up to the Space Station. NASA will buy those services, maybe by 2015. Some of those unemployed will be hired by the commercial companies. I think there is going to be a vibrant industry to get more people into space."

The future of NASA exploration verses commercial spaceflight are "apples and oranges", Johnson said.

"NASA is developing what we call a 'heavy lift vehicle', one that will take you out of Earth's orbit, similar to the Saturn V," he explained. "We are also developing an exploration crewed vehicle, called an 'MPCV', or Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, and developing a heavy launch system to lift things out of Earth's orbit. These commercial companies are developing vehicles to reach the International Space Station and orbit the Earth. For commercial companies to go beyond Earth's orbit would involve too much development costs at the moment. There is no business case to go to an asteroid. Who's going to pay you to go to an asteroid? That's a scientific goal, an American goal, to go there, to the moon, or to Mars."

With the retirement of the Space Shuttle Program, American astronauts are now dependent on the Soviet's and their Soyuz to reach the International Space Station. According to NASA's website, it recently executed a contract with the Russian Federal Space Agency to purchase additional transportation services to and from the International Space Station on the Soyuz. This latest contract spans two years, 2014 to 2016, and costs $753 million, roughly $63 million per seat to include U.S., Canadian, European and Japanese astronauts. From 2007 to 2010 Soyez has transported 30 American astronauts to the Space Station and returned them.

NASA announced in mid April grants to private companies that are competing to transport astronauts to the International Space Station. They include:

The Boeing Company of Houston will receive $92.3 million, the largest of the NASA awards. Boeing has been a major NASA contractor on the space shuttle and International Space Station. The company will use the funds to mature its Crew Space Transportation-100 (CST-100) spacecraft to a preliminary design review stage.
 

Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) of Hawthorne, Calif., will receive $75 million to advance development of its side-mounted launch abort system and crew transportation capsule. SpaceX has successfully launched two of its Falcon 9 rockets, the latest in December carrying a prototype of its Dragon cargo ship. The company was founded by Internet entrepreneur Elon Musk, a co-founder of the online payment service PayPal. 
 

Sierra Nevada Corp. of Louisville, Colo., got $80 million to further develop its winged Dream Chaser vehicle, a seven-person spacecraft, to a preliminary design review stage, designed to launch atop an expendable rocket.
 

Blue Origin of Kent, Wash., will receive $22 million to further the development of its space vehicle design and pusher escape system. Blue Origin was established by Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos and is developing the cone-shaped vertical launch vehicle, the New Shepard.

"I don't think you'll have to be concerned that these companies can't do it," said Johnson. "What you could say is that they haven't demonstrated it yet, and we are ending the Shuttle so we are in a period where we are dependent upon the Soviets. We have to pay them of course. So that costs. It would be better if we paid American companies and I think that soon will be happening. Boeing is a major contractor to maintain the Space Station and some of the analysis for the Space Station. That's already occurring. Boeing had a contract down at Kennedy Space Center and Houston. They've been involved for a long time. The Boeing entry into the commercial market is a capsule and so the capsule comes back in on a parachute. Bigelow Aerospace (based in Las Vegas) and Boeing are cooperating to put the equivalent of a module up there that people could go to."

Some reports suggest the Bigelow/Boeing project will transport private customers and be a sort of hotel space station, not a stretch considering Bigelow founder and CEO, Robert Bigelow, gained his fortune through his ownership of the hotel chain Budget Suites of America.