In the recent annual Space Commerce Conference and Explosion held in Houston, NASA administrator Charles Bolden had openly talked about the need to support both science and astronauts, adding that such assistance coming from private companies will be a huge help in helping scientists and human astronauts get to orbit near the Earth known as the planet Mars.
Besides that, Bolden also mentioned the need for a marketplace in the low Earth orbit, where "NASA is not the only customer," as stated.
Highlighting the companies' move to support NASA, reports added that the work could be done in several ways, such us keeping the U.S' International Space Station, which is currently being used as a micro-gravity laboratory and for conducting tests and experiments.
"Now that the doors have been kicked open, I'm looking forward to new ideas about what we do next and how we keep that market humming." Bolden explained. "Who has a plan for non-NASA astronauts to conduct low-Earth orbit ops?"
As he went on to discuss more about the companies' work, he added that the commercial companies and international partners could be potential leaders in their move to get to the moon's surface once again.
Reports say that one of main reasons for encouraging more private support is the fact that it could allow NASA to focus on more fulfilling goals, including the sending of human astronauts to Mars.
While the key to reaching Mars is still currently in progress, few leaders have remained on the side of still keeping a human ambience in the Earth. Speaking of progress, reports say that NASA had already ordered a CST-100 space taxi and handed a contract to SpaceX, which will be responsible on the crew capsule for Dragon vehicle.
"If all goes well and we get full support from Congress, my hope is we will fly the first commercial crew capsules in the late 2017, early 2018" Bolden said.
He went on saying, "For the first time in quite some time we will no longer be dependent on any other nation to get our crews into space and for us in this day and age that is critically important."
