NASA opening International Space Station to tourists

Fiddle-dee-dee.

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It has a lot to do with tourism. That would fall under:

I mean, I would have used clearer language. They’re speaking somewhat euphemistically.

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According to this NASA estimate the direct costs under ‘ISS’ are $1.45 billion. I’m not sure if any of the other stuff (‘Space and Flight Support’ or ‘Safety, Security, and Mission Services’ sound like categories where overhead hangs out; and some of the operating costs of the ISS may fall under ‘Space Transportation’, since it needs regular resupply) deserves to be factored in as well.

It currently accommodates a crew of 6. Assuming 365 days you get 2,190 person-nights per year. 1.45 billion / 2,190 is $662,100/night.

Unless they are planning on packing the tourists in like sardines(or tighter, you’d want 18.91 times as many slots even if 100% of capacity were dedicated to 3rd parties and NASA’s to sell; and that’s just to break even) $35k/night sounds like it may be profitable for someone; but not for NASA…

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#1%Problems?

did not the trump say something about the planets being the real estate

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NASA opening “International Space Station”

So I guess we are all agreeing that we aren’t even going to pretend it’s not the American Space Station anymore then?

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I confess, your question puzzles me. The ISS has always been the International Space Station (well, early on, some of us campaigned for “Space Station Alpha” :slightly_smiling_face: ).

It was the result of Russia and the US merging their still-unflown permanent-station programs, and inviting other nations to play.

The current consortium is USA (NASA), Russia (Roscosmos), Europe (ESA), Japan (JAXA) and Canada (CSA).

I wasn’t aware of anyone pretending it was strictly American.

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Then how is Nasa able to grant access to the ISS without the other partners being involved?

Because they’re contractually entitled to.

It’s a consortium, not a one-nation, one-vote democracy.

To be clear, there is a Russian Orbital Segment (ROS) and a United States Orbital Segment. (USOS). The ROS is exclusively Russian, while the USOS is shared by multiple nations. Russia’s tourists were only accommodated in the ROS, while NASA’s commercial crews will be limited to the USOS.

Roscosmos gets to decide who travels to the ROS (and they sold tourist flights despite NASA’s objections), and NASA gets to decide who travels to the USOS. Those are the rules everybody signed off on.

These are not separate hostile territories. It’s one station, operating under one commander, cooperating constantly. The ROS/USOS distinction is just a matter of ‘ownership’ - which agency gets to decide what goes where.

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