Blogosphere excitement at the prospect of $150 million, or $80 million depending upon the report you read, going directly to “commercial” development of crew transport to low Earth orbit is all misguided NASA has told Hyperbola
These are the facts:
- NASA is to spend $150 million, not $80 million
- it is to enable earlier Commercial Resupply Services cargo missions
- these early flights will help NASA determine what human rating requirements are needed
- it will also fund work on standardisation of International Space Station docking
This has nothing to do with COTS-D and reports of a crewed launch demo being funded by this money are not true says NASA
And now I am no wiser about this other strange crew transport procurement development
