NASA to keep paying Russia to send astronauts to space station

“Congress, while incrementally increasing annual funding, has not adequately funded the Commercial Crew Program to return human spaceflight launches to American soil this year, as planned,” Bolden wrote in a letter to lawmakers. “This has resulted in continued sole reliance on the Russian Soyuz spacecraft as our crew transport vehicle for American and international partner crews to the ISS.” Now, Bolden said 2017 appears to be at best a long shot given that lawmakers are expected to provide no more than $1 billion for the program in the 2016 fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 — about $250 million less than Obama is seeking. The Commercial Crew program is funding ventures by two private companies — Boeing and SpaceX — to develop a fleet of domestic rockets to resume ferrying astronauts to the space station. The last space shuttle flight to the orbiting lab was in July 2011. More

(Source: USA Today - Aug 7)