{"id":18487,"date":"2018-06-05T20:14:45","date_gmt":"2018-06-05T12:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/nasas-chief-talks-about-handing-over-space-station-to-commercial-consortium\/"},"modified":"2018-06-05T20:14:45","modified_gmt":"2018-06-05T12:14:45","slug":"nasas-chief-talks-about-handing-over-space-station-to-commercial-consortium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/nasas-chief-talks-about-handing-over-space-station-to-commercial-consortium\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s chief talks about handing over space station to commercial consortium"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_424616\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-424616\" style=\"width: 630px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full-width wp-image-424616\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/180605-station-boeing-630x505.jpg\" alt=\"Starliner and space station\" width=\"630\" height=\"505\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/180605-station-boeing-630x505.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/180605-station-boeing-768x615.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/180605-station-boeing.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" id=\"caption-attachment-424616\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist\u2019s conception shows a Boeing Starliner space taxi approaching the International Space Station. (Boeing Illustration)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>For months, the White House has been talking about transitioning the International Space Station to commercial control&nbsp;by 2025, and now NASA\u2019s administrator says he\u2019s working on it.<\/p>\n<p>In a Washington Post interview, Administrator Jim Bridenstine says \u201cthere are people out there that can do commercial management\u201d of the station.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve talked to many large corporations that are interested in getting involved in that through a consortium, if you will.\u201d he told the Post.<\/p>\n<p>Bridenstine declined to name the corporations, and the usual suspects&nbsp;\u2014 including Boeing, the prime commercial contractor for the station \u2014 are mum on the matter.<\/p>\n<p>Even the companies that have voiced interest in managing orbital outposts, such as NanoRacks and Axiom Space, say they\u2019d prefer to have their own base of operations rather than taking over the U.S. segment of the international station. NanoRacks, for instance, has proposed&nbsp;creating outposts using converted rocket upper stages.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"The Case for a Commercial Space Station\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WWWc3Yer__4?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\" data-ratio=\"0.5625\" data-width=\"800\" data-height=\"450\" style=\"display: block; margin: 0px; width: 800px; height: 450px;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Last month, Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg sketched out his vision for a \u201cspace ecosystem\u201d in low Earth orbit that could comprise a dozen outposts, including hotels and in-space manufacturing facilities.<\/p>\n<p>Such an ecosystem could make for an \u201ceconomically viable marketplace,\u201d and provide an opportunity for Boeing to create a space transportation system connecting those outposts with Earth, Muilenburg said.<\/p>\n<p>In the Post interview, Bridenstine acknowledged that it could be challenging for companies to \u201cclose the business case\u201d for taking over operations on the existing space station.<\/p>\n<p>The White House\u2019s drive to commercialize the space station is motivated by its interest in reducing the federal government\u2019s multibillion-dollar outlay for operations, but NASA\u2019s own inspector general has questioned whether that strategy will work.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSuch a business case requires robust demand for commercial market activities,\u201d Inspector General Paul Martin said at a Senate subcommittee hearing last month. \u201cCandidly, the scant commercial interest shown in the station over its nearly 20 years of operation gives us pause about the agency\u2019s current plans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Congressional leaders already have voiced strong opposition to the strategy. Back in February, when the White House announced its intentions, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said that the idea ran counter to federal law and was coming from \u201cnumbskulls\u201d at the Office of Management and Budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An artist\u2019s conception shows a Boeing Starliner space taxi approaching the International Space Station. (Boeing Illustration) For months, the White House has been talking about transitioning the International Space Station to commercial control&nbsp;by 2025, and now NASA\u2019s administrator says he\u2019s working on it. In a Washington Post interview, Administrator Jim Bridenstine says \u201cthere are people [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[291,717,466,190],"class_list":["post-18487","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-commercial-space","tag-international-space-station","tag-jim-bridenstine","tag-nasa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18487"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18487"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18487\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}