Following completion of the current Ares V super-heavy-lift rocket program, the Space Launch System, I believe that the government should commercialize all future launch vehicle development and operations.
Robert Walker and Charles Miller's "Commercial Space Exploration Needs an Obama Relaunch" (op-ed, Jan. 28) calling for President Obama to cancel NASA's program to build a government-designed heavy-lift launch vehicle, the Space Launch System, omits a number of facts.
While NASA works with U.S. industry partners to develop these capabilities, the agency also is developing the Orion spacecraft and the Space Launch System (SLS), a crew capsule and heavy-lift rocket to provide an entirely new capability for human exploration.