New Launch Dates for STS-133 and STS-134

This is going to make me have to change my plans and reservation at the motel in Cocoa Beach. I refuse to miss the last couple of launches I have missed a total of 4 or 5 due to illness and children being born.. As nice as it is to watch it from my front yard.. There is NOTHING like being there.. Closest you will get to and explosion of that magnitude and live to tell about it.Yes, Methuselah ( sts) as served us well.

Damn the Gravity!

AMS just can't seem to pull it together.

It is good to see we will still be utilizing existing hardware and technology to support space exploration. The vehicle I own may be a 97 chevy, but she can still haul just like the rest of them.

Another good reason to have payloads completely finished and ready about 12 months before its launch date. It sounds a long time but it isn't.

Imagine if they'd had a back log of payloads waiting their scheduled turn.

Well....what is the matter commercial....not ready yet ? Won't be for a long time! We got the workhorse now....so lets use it and get on with LEO, Moon and Mars. Oh yes, the spies who loved us....lets use Russia, their our friends now....NOT! What a scam this administrator and sidekick are pulling. Also, who wrote that policy ? What a dysfunctional piece of vision. I guess we expected to much from this guy. Space Socialism at its finest !

Geo wrote, "Well...what is the matter commercial...not ready yet? Won't be or a long time!

Since this article is talking about "Critical payload hardware," I assume you are referring to commercial resupply to the ISS.

SpaceX will be doing their first COTS flight sometime in the next few months, (the maiden flight of Falcon 9 was NOT a COTS flight). Elon is asking NASA that COTS flights 2 and 3 be combined. Whether or not to combine those flights will be a decision that only NASA can make. If COTS 1 flight goes well, there is a "possibility" that COTS flights 2 and 3 will get combined into one flight.

There is also additional COTS funding being approved and with that additional funding, the "possibility" that some supplies will be brought up to the ISS on the last COTS demo flight. That could mean that COTS flight 2/3 could bring supplies up to the ISS. If this is the case, SpaceX might begin delivering supplies to the ISS in just a 1 to 1.5 years from now.

If this doesn't happen, we are looking at closer to 2 years give or take in IMHO. In the space game, that is not too far away. By the way, how long will it be before Ares 1 starts to resupply the ISS?

As far as commercial crew capabilities, congress still hasn't funded COTS D. What's the matter congress, you can throw 9 billion and counting at Ares 1, but you can find 300 million for COTS D?

Disclaimer: The part about supplies possibly being brought up on a COTS flight was something I read on the internet and may not be true, but I put it in to show that resupply may start even sooner than 2 years. I also want it to be known that I have no connection with SpaceX and that this is my speculation based on my readings.

Have a great day.

If we are serious about getting astronauts up to the ISS with our own space capability, we should have already funded COTS D with Space X for a small fraction of what we were spending for a 10 year off program.