Despite the temporary setback in our country’s crewed space exploration program, there will continue to be missions requiring crews to orbit Earth and beyond. Under the NASA Authorization Act of 2010, NASA should have its own heavy launch rocket and crew vehicle developed by 2016. Private companies will continue to explore space, as well. At the time of this writing, SpaceX had launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a Dragon spacecraft into orbit. That mission successfully concluded with the safe return of the Dragon capsule several orbits later. A tentative launch to the International Space Station (ISS) is scheduled to take place by the summer of 2011.