CRuSR Official: NASA Program Will Be Flexible, Forward Thinking

NASA Enlists Caddo Mills-Based Armadillo Aerospace For A Boost to Suborbital Space
Dallas Observer

Armadillo president John Carmack says the company has turned a profit in the last few years thanks to its contracts with NASA and with its pals at the Rocket Racing League. Most mentions of NASA among the Armadillo team, though, are laced with the hopeless sort of sighs you might hear from an Apple Store Genius on his smoke break. While they’re glad to take NASA’s money for any steps along the way to their space tourism future, they’re wary of NASA engineers whose ultimate responsibilities are to agency politics, not rockets….

With the latest award from NASA’s Commercial Reusable Suborbital Research Program — CRuSR, if you’d rather — I was able to reach NASA program exec LK Kubendran for a few more details on Armadillo’s latest partnership with the agency. This award, he says, is the first from a new NASA office that’ll be just as flexible and forward-thinking as the rest of NewSpace.

“Essentially, we’ll be buying flight services,” Kubendran says. His program, within NASA’s new Office of the Chief Technologist, is charged with developing cheap technology to support the agency’s mission. “As a secondary goal, we want to foster this industry. We would like to have this private industry thrive and provide us the platform when we need it.” Just as NASA supported development of the airline industry decades ago, he says, the agency’s awards and contracts will help NewSpace grow in the next few years.

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