NASA Seeks Proposals for Two More Private Astronaut Space Station Visits (spacenews.com) 31
This week NASA "issued a solicitation for the next two private astronaut missions to the International Space Station," reports Space News. Scheduled after May of 2026 and then mid-2027, "These will be the fifth and sixth such missions to the ISS, part of a broader low Earth orbit commercialization effort by NASA with the ultimate goal of replacing the International Space Station with one or more commercial stations."
NASA's Space Station program manager calls the missions "a key part" of helping industry partners "gain the experience needed to train and manage crews, conduct research, and develop future destinations." In short, they see the missions "providing companies with hands-on opportunities to refine their capabilities and build partnerships that will shape the future of low Earth orbit." [NASA's call for proposals] offers an opportunity to have future missions commanded by someone other than a former NASA astronaut. While companies must propose a commander who meets current requirements, it can also propose an alternate commander who is a former astronaut from the Canadian Space Agency, European Space Agency or Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency with similar ISS experience requirements... ["Broadening of this requirement is not guaranteed," NASA warns.]
That could allow some former astronauts already working with commercial spaceflight companies an opportunity to command private astronaut missions. Axiom Space, for example, announced in July 2024 that former ESA astronaut Tim Peake had joined its astronaut team. That came after Axiom and the U.K. Space Agency signed a memorandum of understanding in October 2023 to study the feasibility of a private astronaut mission crewed exclusively by U.K. astronauts.
So far Axiom Space has been awarded all four private astronaut missions, according to the article, "flying one mission each in 2022, 2023 and 2024. Its next mission, Ax-4, is scheduled for no earlier than May."
But "While Axiom has little or no competition for previous PAM awards, it will likely face stiffer competition this time. Vast, a company also planning to develop commercial space stations, has previously stated its intent to submit proposals..."
NASA's Space Station program manager calls the missions "a key part" of helping industry partners "gain the experience needed to train and manage crews, conduct research, and develop future destinations." In short, they see the missions "providing companies with hands-on opportunities to refine their capabilities and build partnerships that will shape the future of low Earth orbit." [NASA's call for proposals] offers an opportunity to have future missions commanded by someone other than a former NASA astronaut. While companies must propose a commander who meets current requirements, it can also propose an alternate commander who is a former astronaut from the Canadian Space Agency, European Space Agency or Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency with similar ISS experience requirements... ["Broadening of this requirement is not guaranteed," NASA warns.]
That could allow some former astronauts already working with commercial spaceflight companies an opportunity to command private astronaut missions. Axiom Space, for example, announced in July 2024 that former ESA astronaut Tim Peake had joined its astronaut team. That came after Axiom and the U.K. Space Agency signed a memorandum of understanding in October 2023 to study the feasibility of a private astronaut mission crewed exclusively by U.K. astronauts.
So far Axiom Space has been awarded all four private astronaut missions, according to the article, "flying one mission each in 2022, 2023 and 2024. Its next mission, Ax-4, is scheduled for no earlier than May."
But "While Axiom has little or no competition for previous PAM awards, it will likely face stiffer competition this time. Vast, a company also planning to develop commercial space stations, has previously stated its intent to submit proposals..."
Oblig OrangeGPT: "No grifting, believe me!" (Score:3, Funny)
"I'm the most ungriftiest President ever! I even invented reverse grift: I give people money for NOT kissing my ass! Clarence Tee once voted against me in Court and I bought him a beautiful RV, everyone says it's so beautiful, almost prettier than Ivanka. Oooh!"
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"I'm the most ungriftiest President ever! I even invented reverse grift: I give people money for NOT kissing my ass! Clarence Tee once voted against me in Court and I bought him a beautiful RV, everyone says it's so beautiful, almost prettier than Ivanka. Oooh!"
Sorry, I don't buy this. The word "tremendous" wasn't used once nor the phrases, "the likes of which we’ve never seen before", or "levels that nobody’s ever seen before" -- phrases, I'll note for Trump, that aren't always the good things you think they are. An Article the Likes of Which Nobody Has Ever Seen Before [theatlantic.com]. :-)
Private astronaut missions (Score:2)
I wonder exactly what the rules will be. Any objections to OnlyFans doing the equivalent of a hotel takeover of the station for a weekend?
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I wonder exactly what the rules will be. Any objections to OnlyFans doing the equivalent of a hotel takeover of the station for a weekend?
Co-sponsored by Pornhub. It's about time we get some real micro-gee sci-fi parody pronz.
Off Topic (Score:1)
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Trump was elected by a lot of people who supported him.
Trump won with 49.8% of the popular vote, beating Harris by only 1.5%. (Google it.)
2) He needs to fix our health care system so your doctor can make decisions about your treatment based on what's best for you, instead of insurance companies deciding based on what's best for their bottom line.
Unless you're a woman in Texas (or Florida, or Idaho, ...) who needs an abortion, then your doctor is limited by what the state government decides is best for you -- since Trump got Roe vs. Wade overturned, so he says...
3) He needs to fix the tax system by shifting the tax burden off the middle class onto the wealthy, rather than the other way around.
Pretty sure Republican in Congress have other ideas and also pretty sure Trump is onboard with that. Tariffs on (basically) everything imported and tax cuts for the rich aren't really going to help the poo
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I don't know what your point is, but that's a lot of people - 77,302,000
Thats his die-hard supporters. Kamala didnt get half that. Her votes were more "Not him" than they were "Her".
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So go on whining and telling his supporters how much you hate him and highlighting how effectively he is doing all the very things that got them to vote for him.
His supporters are too dumb to understand that THEY would be fired and that prices would go up for THEM. He never spelled it out for them because it would have meant not getting elected and now they are going to be pissed.
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I think you live in a different world where prices haven't increased,
They increased because companies got greedy after the pandemic. Their profits took a hit because the world dared to try to save as many lives as possible and they wanted to get that back so they all increased prices. Very little of the inflation was what we think of as traditional inflation where prices go up relative to costs. I know a Trump supporter doesn't understand this, but the confusing thing is that Trump has never given any plans to make this better. In fact he is admitting that he will make i
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1. We have the SSA and it works. It needs to have the contribution cap raised so it can keep up with payments. Do you think Trump will do that? No, he won't. So that's nothing. Before you espouse about 401k (a failed idea) that's dependent on the stock markets, how are those doing?
2. Trump promised a healthcare plan in what, 2017? Where is it? Do you think private insurance will see more regulation over the next 3.5 years? Probably not, so that's nothing.
3. What did TCJA shift burden from and to? Also n
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Developing diversity (Score:2)
I understand what NASA is doing here, they are looking to develop a diverse number of engineering solutions to the problem of human space flight. This is a good thing because you never know when a fundamental flaw could become apparent in an existing design. By having many partners develop solutions to the same problem they are able to evaluate the different solutions and identify what works better or worse. The resulting knowledge can then be fed back to the companies in the form of suggested design change
Big discounts on contract (Score:2)
Can Boeing put in a 50% discount for one way trips?
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Having read up on it, since Boeing Starliner starts at ~200% of a dragon flight to begin with, I think I'd stick with SpaceX.
Especially after reading the other article on Starliner that's on the front page right now, detailing how it scared Butch and Sunni enough that they didn't want to ride back on it.
Apparently, there was a point where they were convinced that they were going to be the first astronauts to actually die in space.
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Having read up on it, since Boeing Starliner starts at ~200% of a dragon flight to begin with, I think I'd stick with SpaceX.
The point of having two companies providing human rated spacecraft to orbit (and potentially beyond) is that if one system proves to be flawed then there is a completely independent system to fall back on. Without that redundancy in space launch capability then NASA might have to rely on another nation to get people down from ISS.
Maybe I'm forgetting something but as I recall the only nations that have the ability to reach the ISS is Russia, USA, and maybe China. In case you missed it the USA doesn't get