The Argentine candidate for NASA astronaut, Noel de Castro, questioned the management of resources allocated during the Kirchnerism to the development of the Argentine space industry and cited the Tronador Project as an example.
Tronador is the Argentine space program led by the National Commission on Space Activities (CONAE) that aims to develop its own launch rockets to place satellites in orbit.
The launcher formally began its testing phases during the presidency of Néstor Kirchner and, despite the millions of dollars invested, was never completed.
Noel de Castro
During an interview, Castro compared the resources allocated to the Argentine project with the cost of the first rocket developed by the private company SpaceX. The enormous difference reflects the level of resources that the Argentine space agency received over the years and the disastrous results obtained from those investments.
"I believe that the Argentine space agency had many resources for a long time that were misused", the candidate stated.
To illustrate her point, Castro referenced the company founded by Elon Musk and noted: "To give you an idea, the first rocket that SpaceX built cost 90 million dollars".
From that comparison, she pointed directly at the development of Tronador and questioned the destination of the funds used to try to carry out the project.
"Argentina started to build a launcher called Tronador, which never amounted to anything, and 600 million dollars were spent. And it doesn't exist", she asserted.
Castro's argument focused on the difference between the two projects. While the first rocket from SpaceX cost USD 90 million, the Argentine development of Tronador consumed around USD 600 million, without the launcher ever being realized.
The candidate also explained what the original goal of the Argentine project was and linked it to SpaceX's early steps in space activity.
"The project was to carry nanosatellites into orbit, similar to how SpaceX started. But there you realize what happens in the Argentine space industry", she stated.
The contrast between the outcome of the Argentine program and SpaceX's initial development allows for observing the failure that the national space industry program suffered and the waste in the use of its resources.
"Here with 90 million they built SpaceX", concluded the Argentine candidate for NASA astronaut.
