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NASA has big plans for its immediate future, including missions to Mars and, of course, Moon 2024's efforts, totally absent from the last federal budget. In science, it can be difficult to get funding and many NASA projects are expensive.
Thus, in the hope of generating additional revenues that can then be used for its own scientific research efforts, NASA has announced a new effort to defend its commercial interests and to open the International Space Station to private companies . New opportunities for commercial visits to the ISS are expected soon, with prices already being chopped up.
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At present, NASA does not have the money needed to travel to the moon in 2024. The current government has recently asked the agency to bring people back on the ground. lunar surface in the next five years. NASA has done its best to generate support for the cause. Legislators have yet to allocate additional funds requested by NASA to make this mission a reality, and it is unclear when (or if) this could happen.
Thus, with its portfolio lighter than ever, NASA will now sell access to the ISS, an orbiting laboratory in which companies can do their own research without having to call on NASA astronauts. .
Here is NASA's own description of its decision to commercialize the space station:
This effort aims to broaden the scope of the space station's commercial activities beyond the mandate of the ISS National Laboratory, which is limited to research and development. A new NASA directive will enable commercial manufacturing and production and allow private astronauts and NASA to conduct new commercial activities aboard the in-orbit laboratory. The directive also sets prices for the use by the US government resource industry on the space station for commercial and marketing activities.
NASA has stated that it limits its own "crew resource and cargo capacity allocation" to make room for private companies. This includes "90 hours of crew time and 175 kg of cargo launching capacity" which he will now sell to whoever is willing to pay.
At present, NASA is considering at least two "short-duration private astronaut missions" in the ISS each year. Everything about the missions will be funded by private funds and will follow NASA guidelines for its commercial crew program.
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