This remains a huge problem since NASA is not able to competitively award service contracts which guarantee that companies meeting human rated or even cargospacecraft requirements will actually be awarded jobs servicing American ISS needs.
After Columbia broke apart with the loss of seven astronauts in February, NASA grounded the orbiter fleet, forcing the United States and its international partners to rely on smaller Russian Soyuz spacecraft to deliver cargo and crews to the space station.
Designed to be flexible for launching spacecraft for crew and cargo missions, SLS and Orion will expand human presence beyond low-Earth orbit and enable new missions of exploration in the solar system.
We also reached a critically important milestone in May when SpaceX became the first private company to send a spacecraft -- the Dragon cargo capsule -- to the International Space Station and return it with cargo intact.
Coming after its first successful docking mission with the International Space Station, this marks the first time that a commercial spacecraft will be docking with the International Space Station with cargo.
The company is developing a heavy-lift rocket with twice the cargo capability of the space shuttle, and also dreams of building a spacecraft that could carry a crew to Mars.