Members of Congress expressed skepticism about the viability of the Obama Administration’s plan for a manned commercial space flight program at an October 26 hearing on the “Future Private Market for Human Spaceflight.” Spokespersons from NASA and aerospace companies testified before the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee on progress toward establishing a “purely commercial capability to fly humans to and from low-Earth orbit, with an emphasis on ferrying NASA astronauts to the International Space Station.”

Current law authorizes $500 for development of the program, and many Members of Congress are reluctant to meet the Administration’s request for $850 million, which NASA says it needs to stay on schedule.

In his opening statement, Committee Chair Ralph Hall (TX-R) said he had yet to be convinced that there was a “sufficient commercial market” to sustain the program, “based on the very thin evidence provided to date by NASA that this new business model is well understood and that it can succeed.”

NASA spokesperson William Gerstenmaier assured the committee that the availability of commercial crew transportation systems would both “represent the emergence of a brand new domestic capability for carrying our astronauts to Low-Earth orbit (LEO)” and “enable the agency to focus on developing its own systems for sending astronauts on missions of exploration beyond LEO.”

Elon Musk, CEO and Chief Technology Officer of Space Exploration Tehcnologies Corp. (SpaceX), a NASA partner, stated, “There is ample evidence of a demand for spaceflight beyond NASA, though it has yet to emerge as a substantial operational secondary market,” adding that “government and the private sector can simultaneously increase the reliability, safety and frequency of space travel, while greatly reducing the costs.”

For more background on the Administration’s proposals, see the September 2011 Congressional Digest on “Space Exploration” ― the 2011–2012 Policy Debate Topic.