( CNN ) -- It did n't take a rocket scientist to predict that NASA 's plan to pay Russia to launch American astronauts into orbit was n't going to turn out well . Three years after NASA retired the space shuttle program , relations between the United States and Russia are worse than at any point since the end of the Cold War . Americans have reportedly been paying Russia $ 70 million a seat to send our astronauts to the International Space Station . That 's three and a half times what the Russians charge private space tourists for the same ride on their 1960s-era spacecraft . Now Russian President Vladimir Putin is reconstituting the Russian empire , and senior Russian officials have reacted to our economic sanctions by suggesting that Americans `` bring their astronauts to the International Space Station using a trampoline . '' NASA and our elected officials are to blame for this embarrassment . NASA has tried to replace the shuttle on its own before resorting to the commercial industry -- programs that were canceled after ludicrous cost overruns and technical setbacks . And worse , politicians and bureaucratic backscratchers repeatedly undermined the nascent commercial space industry , where new American companies are working to do less expensively what NASA was failing to do itself : develop a spacecraft capable of carrying humans into orbit . Instead of accelerating the creation of a thriving commercial space industry , NASA 's second choice -- after its own program failed -- was to pay the Russian government rather than American companies for tickets into orbit . But now that NASA 's funding of the Russian space program has become unattractive politically , its 4-year-old program to hire American companies to send crew to the International Space Station takes on new importance . On Tuesday , NASA announced the winners of its `` commercial crew '' competition . Which of the entrants did the agency award for the biggest contract ? Was it SpaceX , a new leader in commercial spaceflight , which has gone from startup to multibillion dollar company in just over a decade , spent hundreds of millions of private investment designing and building three new rockets and a human-rated space capsule , completed more than a dozen launches and lined up dozens more for commercial customers , and proved itself more cost effective than its larger competition ? Was it Sierra Nevada , another private company that has developed a small , winged space plane that lands passengers returning to Earth comfortably on runways , rather than sending them hurdling into the ocean -- giving the design a unique commercial potential ? No . The largest contract in a program designed to boost competition within the commercial space industry went to Boeing -- the gigantic , heavily subsidized government contractor with a history of huge cost overruns . Although SpaceX did win a smaller prize of its own , the fact that the old incumbent is getting a contract to provide services to the space station is going to limit the promise of America 's commercial space industry . But worse , despite committing to purchase some of these services from Boeing and SpaceX , NASA is still reportedly at work on its own , vastly more expensive design , the Space Launch System , in which Boeing is also involved . To anyone who is n't a NASA employee , a NASA contractor or a U.S. senator with a protected workforce in his state , this makes no sense . NASA should not be developing its own proprietary version of capabilities it could purchase commercially at much lower cost , especially when we know the agency 's bureaucratic tendencies will be to view the commercial versions as competitors to kill . Instead , Congress should kill the NASA version and require the agency to purchase basic launch services from companies such as SpaceX , Sierra Nevada , and even Boeing -- if it can make its designs cost-competitive . Commercial space advocates in Congress have been trying to do this for years , but bureaucracies -- both government agencies and their giant contractors -- are extraordinarily adept at protecting themselves and their interests . In addition , Congress should hold hearings on why NASA selected such an expensive proposal for its commercial crew program when potentially cheaper , more innovative designs were available . Tuesday 's announcement was a modest step forward for the commercial space industry , since it will mark the first time NASA has bought tickets from American companies to send astronauts into space . But NASA will need to embrace new entrants and promote a lot more competition to make sure this one small step for NASA is n't one giant leap backward on the taxpayer dime .
NASA missed a chance to back cheaper , more innovative design in new contract , Newt Gingrich says . Decision to award SpaceX a contract was a modest step forward for the commercial space industry , he says . But NASA will need to embrace new entrants and promote a lot more competition , he adds .