If I may, I am personally very excited for more people, especially wealthy people, to go into space so that many of them experience the overview effect.[0]<p>> The overview effect is a cognitive shift in awareness reported by some astronauts during spaceflight, often while viewing the Earth from outer space.<p>> It is the experience of seeing firsthand the reality of the Earth in space, which is immediately understood to be a tiny, fragile ball of life, "hanging in the void", shielded and nourished by a paper-thin atmosphere. From space, national boundaries vanish, the conflicts that divide people become less important, and the need to create a planetary society with the united will to protect this "pale blue dot" becomes both obvious and imperative.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overview_effect</a>
[1] is a link to the NASA press release.<p>At a glance, it looks less about space tourism and more about enabling private companies to begin manufacturing and development in LEO or conduct experiments that NASA themselves don't need to be directly involved in.<p>In fact it seems to specifically call out that private astronauts are only allowed if they enable the allowed "activities".<p>Also, it looks like they are looking to have a dedicated "commercial" section of the ISS, and long term they want to have multiple commercial destinations in LEO!<p>[1] <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-opens-international-space-station-to-new-commercial-opportunities-private" rel="nofollow">https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-opens-international-...</a>
>> $35,000 (£27,500) per night.<p>That is cheaper than the multi-room suites on board the A380. It's cheaper than renting many boats.<p>Or maybe this is a trick. How long is a "night" on space station? Only an hour or so iirc. Maybe they get back to earth and get a surprise Expedia bill on their cc.
I love that they are doing this, but I am worried it may not be enough to keep the ISS up past 2024, but it is a good first step.<p>Some context for those that haven’t been following closely:
It costs NASA over 4 billion a year to maintain the ISS. [0]<p>While the vast majority of that cost is transportation to/from the ISS (around 2.4 billion), there is a sizeable chuck that if they could “offload” to the private sector, may allow NASA to keep the ISS in orbit longer than currently planned.<p>The problem is, at least until they grow a true market, that market isn’t big enough to support that maintenance.<p>So, I <i>believe</i> the strategy (which makes sense) is try and get a true market/interest in the ISS going. If they can do that successfully, it should lower the cost for everyone, potentially allowing for even more things to happen in LEO.<p>So we will see, but I will note one of the biggest risks for SpaceX/Blue Origin/others doing commercial resupply is that once ISS disappears, there is no ready customer/market for their commercial offerings for crew. No way faster to kill the infant commercial crew space industry than to starve it of revenue.<p>[0] <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy_2018_budget_presentation_media_telecon.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy_2018...</a>
They've done this before. Charles Simonyi [0] went up to the ISS in 2007 and 2009. I got to talk to him via ham radio.<p>Space Adventures [1] has been doing it since 2001, but it seem they haven't had any recent trips.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Simonyi" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Simonyi</a>
[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Adventures" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Adventures</a>
Most people talk about 1) tourism and 2) research which makes sense, but I can see a lot of benefit for marketing and branding. Imagine promo videos of someone using your gadget in space. A private company could fly up a few models/actors, a few of the latest brands goods, and get shots looking back at earth or floating around.<p>Luxury goods like watches and pens have already capitalized on this (Fisher Space Pen, Omega Moonwatch). I could see other high margin luxury brands snagging a seat:<p>- Sneakers (Air Jordans -> Space Jordans?)<p>- Jewelry (Diamond industry could play up a diamonds/stars theme)<p>- Fashion (play up the weightless/effortless aspect)<p>Any brand could get in on it if someone figured out the economics of a testing service. Small brands and Kickstarter projects could pool resources and fly up a few hundred toys and say they were 'tested in space'.
Given that ISS belongs to multiple countries (US / Russia / Japan / Canada / UE), is NASA allowed to sell tickets to travel there and get keep the benefits of the sell for itself ?
I remembered the EoL date for ISS being 2024, but it looks like a bill was passed this September extending it to 2030.<p><a href="https://spacenews.com/house-joins-senate-in-push-to-extend-iss/" rel="nofollow">https://spacenews.com/house-joins-senate-in-push-to-extend-i...</a>
From the official tweet:<p>> @Space_Station is open for commercial business! Watch @Astro_Christina talk about the steps we're taking to make our orbiting laboratory accessible to all Americans.<p>Why is it limited only to Americans?
> Nasa's announcement on Friday is part of a move towards full privatisation of the ISS. US President Donald Trump published a budget last year which called for the station to be defunded by the government by 2025.<p>I had no idea that the ISS was going to be de-funded. Does that even make sense?
Really off-topic and nit-picking: if you are going to editorialize the title to capital letters for every words (tourists -> Tourists) then do it at least for `NASA`.<p>While I Am At It, I Do Dislike random Capitalization :) and those rules <a href="https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/capitalization/rules-for-capitalization-in-titles.html" rel="nofollow">https://grammar.yourdictionary.com/capitalization/rules-for-...</a>