Who Will Pay For a Commercial Space Station After the End of the ISS?

MarkWhittington writes: While NASA is planning its road to Mars, a number of commercial interests and place policy experts are discussing what happens after the International Space Station ends its operational life. Currently, the international partners have committed to operating ISS through 2024. Some have suggested that the space station, conceived by President Ronald Reagan in 1984, could last as long as 2028. But, after that, there will still be a need for a space station of some sort, either in low Earth orbit, or at one of the Lagrange points where the gravity of the moon and Earth cancel one another out.

Comments

Re:Indeed - WHY do we need a space station?

[ColdWetDog]

No, you could not have done it on Mir. Mir was small, horribly kludged together and really not extensible. It was going to deorbit in a bunch of pieces by itself or more gracefully (as was done). It was beyond EOL. Well beyond. It was a testament to Russian engineering that it stayed up as long as it did.