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NASA To Allow Private Companies To Hook Up Modules To ISS (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Private space companies may soon get the opportunity to add their own habitat modules to the outside of the International Space Station. That's according to NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, who announced the new initiative today as a way to help expand the number of companies and people that can do work and research in space. That can eventually help companies gain the experience and capability to create private space stations of their own. "A vibrant user community will be key to ensuring the economic viability of future space stations," wrote Bolden in a White House blog post. The announcement of this new opportunity comes just a few months after NASA asked private companies for ideas of how they might use one of the docking ports on the ISS. Based on the responses NASA received, Bolden said companies had a "strong desire" to attach commercial modules to the station that could benefit both NASA and the private sector. Bolden didn't specify which companies expressed interest, but one company in particular, Bigelow Aerospace, has been very vocal about its desire to hook up habitats to the ISS; the company wants to attach its next big inflatable habitat, the B330, to the ISS as early as 2020. One of Bigelow's experimental habitats is already connected to the ISS, though its stay is only temporary and meant to gather data about Bigelow's habitat technology. While the new ISS initiative is meant to foster innovation in the private sector, it will also presumably help jumpstart the space station's transition from a state-run project to one helmed by the private sector. The ISS is set to retire in 2024, and NASA is looking to move beyond lower Earth orbit and send humans to Mars by the mid-2030s. But before NASA abandons the ISS, the space agency wants to leave the orbiting lab in some private company's capable hands. "Ultimately, our desire is to hand the space station over to either a commercial entity or some other commercial capability so that research can continue in low-Earth orbit," Bill Hill, NASA's deputy associate administrator for Exploration Systems Development, said at a press conference in August. President Barack Obama also said Tuesday that the country will send Americans to Mars by the 2030s and return them "safely to Earth," which is part of a long-term goal to "one day remain there for an extended time."
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Is washing its hands of manned spaceflight for the next couple of decades at least. Wishing SpaceX the best of luck..
I don't care what modules they send up to the ISS, just don't let Matthew McConaughey anywhere near them.
captcha: irately
Agreed. They've done enough damage here, along with poprocks.
So apparently they plan to solve the issue of cosmic radiation by attaching 1,000's of Nokia phones to the outside of the crew compartments, rendering the ISS impervious to all forms of damage and radiation.
There is potential in the space tourism market. Instead of sending people up into space and straight back down, they would let them stay aboard an ISS module designed for tourists.
The ultimate get away. They make a Space Station module to accomodate the tourists, they get to spend a day in space, see their planet from the space station.
It's 20 million dollars a flight for tourists on these proposed space trips, that's no chump change.
Once you've established that market, you could add extra modules, a Trump Casino module, a Trump Russian Hookers module. The possibilities with our new president are wide and varied and not limited by any kind of ethics or legality! Why build a Casino in Cuba when you can build one in Space! Make American great again!
go to amazon.com, and look in the upper left-hand corner of your screen. don't you think that dog (or fox) looks like pedobear???? i do. i think this is pedodog (or fox) and bezos is a pedo.
I'm not actually sure that the maths works out for large, luxurious, permanent, private space habitats, but I see this as a step in that direction. Makes it easier to countenance wrecking this one, for anyone that can afford it. For example, as Neal Stephenson wrote in Seveneves: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... (in a different context, the moon disintegrated) 'we' could just go up until things straightened themselves out a bit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Alternative 3 looking less and less like a joke or a piece of conspiracy theory now. Everyone seems to want to rush to Mars now, too, although, that seems to me to be a lot less realistic than near-earth habitats.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
1000 points to the company who sends up a customized module for conducting full-time sex-in-space "studies".
Couples, or whatever, could volunteer to go up and participate in the study for a small $1 to 20 Million processing fee. Think of all the much needed research that could be accomplished, all the critical questions that could be answered. For instance; Will Courvoisier and a waterbed work as well to seduce an astronaut in space as well as it does on Earth?
Too bad Obama's speech wont have anywhere near the impact of another space-related speech given by another Democrat president half a century ago.
Ain't no one going to Mars. The radiation and gravity differences alone will kill you. We have evolved to live on Earth in its gravity and biosphere. No amount of scifi is going to fix that. Welcome to Earth and enjoy your stay because you aren't going to go anywhere else.
It's modular, drop the outdated/worn-out modules to burn up, attach new modules, build it out, expand it. having an arbitrary retirement date for a modular facility does not make sense. If they are serious about Mars they should be planning on adding on to the ISS, in order to use it as part of the process and route out of Earth Orbit to Mars. It can be a fueling station, build the Mars space craft of smaller modules sent up and parked at the ISS as they are assembled. Just abandoning it eight years from now seems very short sighted.
I'm too lazy to compose a creative sig.
Just make sure to not connect the OpenOffice module to the Microsoft Office module, those two never work together.
ISS Owners workshop manual
I'm thinking this will be a must for even getting started.
http://amzn.to/2dJ7mGB
Here's what I envision - Should have it's own solar power and data link
Self learning away from government control and manual override.
Learns from Facebook posts about humans and what drives them.
What could possibly go wrong?
Who are we to argue with Darwin?
They weent exactly queuing up to help pay for thdesign building and actually putting it therebut in the interest of 'free enterprise' charge them what the going rate unsubsidised would be.
I first read that as "Hook up modules to ISIS" LOL! Thank goodness NASA is only allowing private companies to hook modules up to the INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION :)
Russia wants a higher orbital inclination, so the ISS will go over more Russian territory. Their new space station is planned for a 64.8-degree inclination. The early parts on the ISS are from ~2000. Russia also has disputes with the US over Syria and Ukraine. All sound like good reasons to me. Frankly, high development costs in America, and the Space Shuttle drove costs of the ISS up. Delta IV heavies, a manuevering spacecraft, and Russian designed modules could produce a cheaper Space Station.
I for one, welcome our inevitably to come space pirates.
Aaaargh!
In the first years of the Internet, people didn't consider viruses or malware; we were too consumed with getting it connected and working. In the first few years of the Open ISS, we didn't consider viruses or malware; we were too consumed with getting things to connect and work.
As we start to seriously consider space exploration it would be a major step to go ahead and create some standards for space equipment, doors, ports, and connections need to be standardized so that they can be more modular, anyone should be able to build something using the standards for connecting and powering modules.. Like USB/microUSB.
He’s the founder of ISS. He’s the founder of ISS. He’s the founder. He founded ISS.