The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said it will open the International Space Station (ISS) for commercial space travel from as early as 2020.
The America international agency said on Friday that this was to allow private astronauts and more extensive commercial research on the orbiting outpost.
“The goal is to grow a very robust space economy led by private companies as the agency works to push its longer-term goals to send humans back to the moon and further into space,’’ NASA officials said at a news conference.
According to officials, the move shows that NASA is willing to let the private sector become more involved in space, including the development of products useful on Earth. “There’s a lot of excitement in the commercial sector for this,” Jeff DeWit, NASA’s chief financial officer, said.
DeWit said the programme would not be a profit-making venture for NASA however would defray some of the agency’s expenses, leaving money available for its goals to return to the moon by 2024 and send humans to Mars after that.
There already are over 50 companies conducting commercial research on the space station.“The new policy, open only to U.S. commercial companies, will allow the manufacture, production, transport and marketing of commercial goods.
“It will also allow NASA astronauts to take coordinated action in support of commercial activities,” NASA said.
NASA has already collected recommendations from companies to assess the potential growth of a low-Earth orbit economy and how to best stimulate private demand for commercial human spaceflight.
“Private astronaut missions that will be possible under the new policy will last up to 30 days, and the duties of the private astronauts must fall into the approved commercial and marketing activities outlined in the policy.
“To qualify, commercial and marketing activities must either require microgravity to enable production or development of a commercial application, have a connection to NASA’s mission or support the development of a low-Earth orbit economy,’’ NASA said.
Report says NASA envisions up to two private astronaut missions per year.“The missions will be privately funded and will use a U.S. spacecraft developed under NASA’s Commercial Crew Programme.
“But it will be up to the company that develops the mission to determine crew composition and ensure the private astronauts meet NASA’s medical standards and training.
“The ISS, collaboration among five space agencies representing 15 countries, took 10 years and more than 30 missions to assemble.The first segment of the ISS launched from Russia in 1998.
“The space station now is approximately the size of a football field and orbits about 400 kilometres above Earth, periodically changing its crew of three to six astronauts.
“It has had a crew since 2000, with crew members from the U.S., Russia, Japan, Canada and Europe.
