NASA awards more money to two private space station proposals
Because Northrop Grumman has dropped its plans to build its own private space station, joining instead the Starlab station consortium led by Voyager Space, NASA has been able to shift the funding planned for Northrop Grumman’s station to two other two private space station projects.
Voyager Space’s Starlab station development will receive an additional $57.5 million from NASA, which brings NASA’s total funding for Starlab so far to $217.5 million, the space agency said.
…The Orbital Reef space station of Blue Origin and Sierra Space is receiving an additional $42 million, bringing that project’s total NASA funding so far to $172 million.
NASA says the extra money will help both consortiums meet their schedules.
A third private station, Axiom, also under development in partnership with NASA, plans to dock its initial modules to ISS, and then undock when completed to fly free.
A fourth American private space station is also being built, but independent of NASA entirely. The company, VAST, has teamed up with SpaceX to launch its first modules on Starship/Superheavy, followed by at least two manned missions.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Because Northrop Grumman has dropped its plans to build its own private space station, joining instead the Starlab station consortium led by Voyager Space, NASA has been able to shift the funding planned for Northrop Grumman’s station to two other two private space station projects.
Voyager Space’s Starlab station development will receive an additional $57.5 million from NASA, which brings NASA’s total funding for Starlab so far to $217.5 million, the space agency said.
…The Orbital Reef space station of Blue Origin and Sierra Space is receiving an additional $42 million, bringing that project’s total NASA funding so far to $172 million.
NASA says the extra money will help both consortiums meet their schedules.
A third private station, Axiom, also under development in partnership with NASA, plans to dock its initial modules to ISS, and then undock when completed to fly free.
A fourth American private space station is also being built, but independent of NASA entirely. The company, VAST, has teamed up with SpaceX to launch its first modules on Starship/Superheavy, followed by at least two manned missions.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
There needs to be an official limit for how much these “commercial” stations will be funded by NASA. If it is felt that two stations are better than one and each is funded to the tune of a billion per year then over 20 years that comes to $40B. If each Starship flight to the Moon or Mars costs $50 M on average then the opportunity costs of subsidizing these commercial stations would be 800 Starship missions and up to 40,000 or so crew / settlers on the Moon and/or Mars. Is that sort of missed opportunity worth however many experiments in LEO and for what purpose?
DougSpace,
Why do you assume an either/or situation? With private money, rather than the limited government budget, we can fund both space stations, bases on the Moon, and settlements on Mars, all at the same time. This is an advantage of moving away from NASA-owned hardware to hardware that is rented by NASA. Once the commercial space stations are in place, NASA can be one of many customers. They are commercial stations, not NASA stations.
’There is far more capital available outside of NASA [for use by commercial space marketplace] than there is inside of NASA.’ — paraphrased from an interview with NASA Administrator Bridenstine on the Ben Shapiro radio show on Monday 3 August 2020.
The rules can be different, too. NASA does not do much in the way of commercial manufacturing, but this can become commonplace on space stations.
The proximate purpose is the profit that comes from the products innovated for or from these missions, and that is why there is far more capital available outside of NASA. Ultimately, however, we all receive increased prosperity from these same products and the efficiencies achieved in their production and in the transportation to and from space.