Last Monday, Boeing held a press conference to show a mock-up of its CST-100 spacecraft. The company did it in Cape Canaveral, in an area of the Kennedy Space Center that was once used in the Space Shuttle program and in recent years was abandoned. In the last months, Boeing  refurbished the area with the idea of ​​using it for the management of the CST-100 spacecraft space missions to conduct together with NASA.

Actually, Boeing had already officially unveiled its CST-100 spacecraft in July 2013, when NASA astronauts Randy Bresnik and Serena Auñón made some assessments of a mock-up. This new press conference not only serves to show the renewed area of ​​the Kennedy Space Center but also to convince as many people as possible of the value of the project at an important time.

The Boeing CST-100 project is one of the three to be financed within NASA’s Commercial Crew integrated Capability (CCiCap) program, which is the third phase of the Commercial Crew Development (CCDev) initiative. In August or September 2014, NASA will have to decide the partners to select for the further development of the program so for Boeing it’s important that the CST-100 project has maximum visibility.

Sen. Bill Nelson, who was present at Monday’s event, said he expects NASA to select multiple partners if the budget will be close to that proposed by the Senate of $805 million. Boeing’s competitors are SpaceX, with its Dragon V2, and Sierra Nevada Corporation, with its mini-shuttle Dream Chaser.

It’s a delicate moment for the development of the CCDev initiative also because of the recent tensions between the USA and Russia. Today, the USA must rely on Russia to send astronauts to the International Space Station and to bring them back to Earth. A “ticket” now costs about $70 million.

The continuing budget cuts at NASA have slowed the development of new manned spacecraft so after the end of the Space Shuttle program the various projects hadn’t even started their test flights. The tension between the USA and Russia is making this situation even more embarrassing.

For these reasons, Boeing hoped to begin test flights of its CST-100 spacecraft next year but due to delays in funding they’ve been postponed, probably to 2017. On the other hand, it’s possible that the U.S. Congress finally decides to approve a decent budget. Nothing like international rivalry encourages generosity with money.

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