Axios Space – June 11, 2019

NASA's plans to create a strong economy in low Earth orbit, where private spaceflight companies can thrive, could eventually leave agency astronauts stranded on Earth with nowhere to go.

Why it's important: NASA hopes to play a leading role in the development of a private space flight economy, including private sector astronauts. The agency sees this as a way to free it to focus on more distant goals, such as bringing humans back to the moon and eventually to Mars.

• But if private industry picks up manned space destinations in low Earth orbit and the funding and political support of NASA missions to the Moon or Mars disappear, there is no point in having a government-sponsored spaceflight program.

Driving the news: NASA announced on Friday that it would create a market for private spaceflight in low Earth orbit.

• The agency wants US companies to send their astronauts first to the International Space Station from 2020, and then to the space stations they operate themselves.

The catch: By abandoning much of the control of manned spaceflight, a region of paramount importance to the Earth sciences and other discoveries, NASA is at risk of having its manned space flight program further affected by political vagaries.

• Today, NASA is partially using the International Space Station as a test bed for further exploration of the solar system.
• As the ISS ages and becomes obsolete, NASA could conduct research on the outposts of the private space in the future.
• But if, at the same time, the missions in the deep space are delayed or canceled, it is more difficult to see where the NASA astronauts are in this larger landscape.

"If the private sector takes hold of the low Earth orbit and the political support for exploration dissipates, then what is the reason for being a government program? "

– John Logsdon, founder of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, at Axios

Between the lines: It is realistic to imagine that NASA's exploration objectives will evolve in the short or long term. The space agency is constantly facing a political boost when new administrations take power and impose new targets for spaceflight.

• The impetus to bring private companies into the game of manned spaceflight stems in part from the need to reduce the launch costs of NASA in orbit.
• The agency currently spends about $ 1.8 billion of its space station budget of $ 3 billion to $ 4 billion on transportation.
• If launch costs were reduced, it would free up money for NASA's broader exploration objectives.

But, but, but: It is not yet clear what the demand for manned orbital space flights will be in the private sector. A report published in 2017 on the market of private space stations revealed that there was no obvious and profit-driven demand for such an installation in orbit, at least not yet.