WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 16th October, 2018) US efforts for two private companies to build rockets to carry astronauts to and from outer space from American soil are unlikely to be accelerated following last week's aborted Soyuz launch, Astronaut Scott Kelly said in an interview on Monday.
"Since US commercial crew vehicles haven't flown before, they probably can't be accelerated much," Kelly stated.
Kelly's comments followed last week's aborted Soyuz launch, in which emergency systems allowed US Astronaut Nick Hague and Russian Cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin to return to Earth safely.
NASA has named nine astronauts to crew the first test flights of the CST-100 Starliner, being built by Boeing and Space X.
The Space X's Crew Dragon is expected to make its first manned flight in April 2019 while Boeing's Starliner is scheduled for an unmanned test flight in March 2019 followed by a manned flight in August, the companies have announced.
The United States has depended on Soyuz to carry astronauts two and from the International Space Station since the Space Shuttle program ended in 2011.
