In a sort of state-of-the-agency address here Jan. 20, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden warned against hitting the reset button on the space policies the Obama administration has set over the last six years. "The worst thing, the absolute worst thing we could do would be to interrupt that progress and go back to the beginning again," Bolden said in a speech during a Maryland Space Business Roundtable luncheon. He spoke only hours before U.S. President Barack Obama was scheduled to deliver the annual State of the Union address. Bolden touted such Obama initiatives as the commercial crew and cargo programs, saying there is now "wide consensus" these programs were "a good investment," and that the model of funding companies to build, own and operate spacecraft with NASA as an anchor customer should be leveraged for exploration beyond the International Space Station. Orbital Sciences Corp. and SpaceX are delivering cargo to station now, and Boeing and SpaceX could launch astronauts there as soon as 2017 under the Commercial Crew Transportation Capability contracts they received in September.
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