Griffin Reiterates Commitment To Commercial Services

摘要

Commercial space station cargo ships, crew ferries and other spacecraft will prove a vital cog in NASA's engine for future space exploration, the agency's top official said Nov. 15. "We want to be able to buy these services from American industry," NASA Administrator Mike Griffin told the American Astronautical Society during its annual conference here, adding that the first space station resup-ply proposals from commercial providers are expected this autumn. "It will not be government business as usual," he said. Commercial cargo- and crew-transportation services to the international space station are just the tip of what Griffin dubbed "the dawn of the true space age," an era which could include private fueling depots in low-Earth orbit to aid NASA's plan to return astronauts to the Moon. "It is exactly the type of enterprise which should be left to industry and the [commercial] marketplace," Griffin said.