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NASA Is Giving Away $400M To Private Space Stations; Who Will Snag Them?
By Alexa Heah, 21 Sep 2021
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Image via NASA / Roscosmos
With space ventures gearing up for tourist flights in the near future, it’s inevitable corporations want a piece of the galactic pie too.
Soon, NASA plans to award up to US$400 million to firms wanting to make their mark in orbit with their very own space stations.
For the past two decades, the space agency has been running the International Space Station (ISS), but with multiple failures in recent years, it may be reaching its end.
When the ISS finally calls it a day, NASA isn’t planning to build a new one, but will contract them out to private companies through the Commercial Low-Earth Orbit Destinations program.
Phil McAlister, NASA’s Commercial-Spaceflight director, told CNBC that it has “received roughly about a dozen proposals” thus far. The agency will choose two to four by the year’s end, and will award up to US$400 million among the selected contracts.
“We got an incredibly strong response from industry to our announcement for proposals for commercial, free fliers that go directly to orbit. I can’t remember the last time we got the many proposals [in response] to a [human spaceflight] contract announcement,” McAlister said.
Currently, according to Insider, NASA spends about US$4 billion a year to keep the ISS in orbit. If it chose to rent or buy facilities on larger, private space stations instead, McAlister posited it could save the agency over US$1 billion yearly—a huge chunk of change.
At the moment, all we have is speculation, as NASA won’t reveal the companies that submitted proposals just yet. The only clue we have is that the firms include spaceflight companies as well as startups.
Which companies will snag their very own space station up in space? It’s highly likely the billionaire space ventures have expressed interest, though we could see competition heating up once again among the founders.
[via Insider, cover image via NASA / Roscosmos]
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