‘Guess Who’s Still on the Ground?’: NASA Administrator Taunts Boeing’s Failure to Launch Starliner

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson appears to have come round to the personal house trade. In an interview with Newsweek, Nelson praised SpaceX for its progress within the spacefaring realm whereas criticizing Boeing for its much-delayed Starliner spacecraft.

“I think the private space industry is extremely beneficial,” Nelson informed Newsweek in an article printed final week. “Just look at what SpaceX has already accomplished.”

Well now, that is definitely a brand new perspective from the previous astronaut, who was sworn in as administrator for the house company in May 2021. In 2010, the then-senator and chairman of the science and house subcommittee argued whether or not the $6 billion funding NASA was looking for on the time for its industrial crew taxis can be higher spent on the house company’s heavy raise rocket.

Twelve years later, NASA’s Space Launch System rocket is struggling to get off the launch pad after a number of delays and important funds overruns. At the identical time, Elon Musk’s SpaceX is a wild success, because it now usually ferries astronauts to the International Space Station utilizing its reusable Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon capsule. On prime of 4 profitable crewed missions to the ISS, NASA just lately awarded 5 extra ISS journeys to SpaceX value $1.4 billion. SpaceX can also be at the moment creating a lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis 3 mission, whereas the house company put out the decision yesterday for proposals from personal corporations to develop a second lunar lander for future missions to the Moon. “I promised competition, so here it is,” Nelson stated earlier this 12 months. “Competition leads to better, more reliable outcomes.”

However, NASA’s different industrial crew accomplice, Boeing, has struggled to certify its CST-100 Starliner as a consequence of a slew of delays and technical issues. A botched uncrewed take a look at of the system in December 2019 led an impartial NASA-Boeing overview workforce to situation 80 suggestions to Boeing, in what was a scathing indictment of the undertaking and the corporate itself. The reusable crew capsule just lately accomplished its first uncrewed end-to-end take a look at flight and Boeing is now hoping to finish a crewed demo mission in February 2023.

“When there was the beginning of the space cargo and crew [programs], the two serious bidders were SpaceX and Boeing, and everybody poo-pooed SpaceX and said, ‘Oh, Boeing is a legacy company,’” Nelson told Newsweek. “Well, guess who is about to make its sixth flight after its first test flight with astronauts, and guess who’s still on the ground?”

As a newcomer on the scene, SpaceX certainly wasn’t a fan favorite at first. Former NASA Deputy Administrator Lori Garver revealed in her recently published memoir that she faced backlash for supporting SpaceX’s partnership with the space agency. “In response to public comments Elon Musk had made about SpaceX’s ability to improve on NASA existing programs, Bill Nelson shouted at me to ‘get your boy Elon in line,” Garver claimed in her memoir.

He certainly appears to have been one of those people who “poo-pooed” SpaceX in the beginning, but now Nelson is seemingly jumping ship to join the winning side and realign himself with an evolving space industry.

More: NASA Requests Two More Private Missions to the ISS