But safety is also key, advised George Nield, Associate Administrator for Commercial Space Transportation at the Federal Aviation Administration.
"We want an environment that is conducive to testing, " says Patricia Grace Smith, associate administrator for FAA's Commercial Space Transportation division.
Single-sourcing space transportation capability will just result in a new monopoly and will evolve the same cost structure as the old.
At the Paris Air Show this week, I spent some time talking with Alain Charmeau, the CEO of Astrium Space Transportation.
There can be no doubt that private industry can build and operate space transportation vehicles much more rapidly and cheaply than government.
He spoke about why the company invested in private space transportation and explored the growth of transistors, qubits and human opportunities.
The feasibility studies on this new rocket are being led by Astrium Space Transportation, which is also the prime contractor on the current vehicle.
After decades of expensive and infrequent space travel we seem to be at the cusp of a new generation of much less expensive and faster growing commercial space transportation options.
Even as NASA's budget has decreased by approximately 15 percent in constant dollars since 1993, we have made provision for several important new initiatives to maintain the delicate balance between human space flight, earth and space science, and advanced aeronautics and space transportation technology.
WHITEHOUSE: Jacob J. Lew Testimony to House Science Committee, 08/06/1998 | The White House
As OMB previously indicated in our statement for the record for this Committee's May 6 hearing, if additional resources are warranted for Station development, the Administration intends to look first for offsets within NASA while protecting Administration priorities in space and earth science, advanced space transportation, and aviation safety research.
WHITEHOUSE: Jacob J. Lew Testimony to House Science Committee, 08/06/1998 | The White House
There is little physical opportunity to increase either living space or transportation infrastructure.
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Inevitable changes in the ways we define personal space and transportation are likely to conflict with the automobile as we currently know it.
If SpaceX managers are able to meet "even half of their mission goals, that would be a huge success, " according to Jeff Greason, chief executive of XCOR Aerospace, a space-transportation start-up.
Early signs of economic recovery in 2012 are appearing with muted analyst opinions in the transportation space, even as manufacturing data are showing improvement.
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According a joint press release, the two companies agreed that SpaceX will provide passenger transportation to private space stations to be built by Bigelow.
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Bigelow, who launched a small prototype of the module in 2006 after licensing the patent from NASA, will rely on Boeing Co. and Southern California rocket developer Space Exploration Technologies to provide transportation.
"We're handing off to the private sector our transportation to the International Space Station so that Nasa can focus on what we do best - exploring even deeper into our Solar System, with missions to an asteroid and Mars on the horizon, " explained agency administrator Charles Bolden.
Additionally, the SLS will serve as a back up for commercial and international partner transportation services to the International Space Station.
In airports around the country, they are being subjected to intrusions on their personal space by people and machines of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).
This left Russia's Soyuz capsules as the only means of transportation to and from the space station, reducing Russia's ability to sell seats on its rockets.
BBC: NEWS | Science/Nature | Astronauts may get time extension
Advances made by these American companies during the first contract phase known as the certification products contracts (CPC) will begin the process of ensuring integrated crew transportation systems will meet agency safety requirements and standards to launch American astronauts to the International Space Station from the United States, ending the agency's reliance on Russia for these transportation services.
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The drive to improve public transportation, clean up the air and increase green space has played an essential role.
Safety is essential to any transportation system whether on land, sea or air, and space shuttles are a vivid example of that axiom.
We also incorporated Economy.com's business cost index, which looks at labor, tax, energy and office space costs and its living cost index, which factors in housing, transportation, food and other household expenditures.
The US space agency is due to retire its shuttles next year and is working on a new crew transportation system, to be introduced in about 2014-15.
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