NASA to Open Space Station for Tourists by 2020

Good News for explorers and adventure lovers, as NASA is planning to allow tourists and private citizens to visit and stay at the International Space Station (ISS) for a month at a cost of about $35,000 per night. The first mission could be operational as early as 2020.

The decision reflects the withdrawal of NASA’s longstanding prohibition against tourists and private interests at the orbiting research lab and is seen as a move for a broader push to expand commercial activities at the ISS and in the space.

NASA’s Chief financial officer Jeff DeWit said, “NASA is opening the International Space Station to commercial opportunities and marketing these opportunities as we’ve never done before”. 

Thus, it also paves the way for the private citizens to travel to the ISS on board rocket-and-capsule launch systems, which are being developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Boeing Co. The two companies are also preparing themselves to ferry astronauts to the ISS from US soil, in nearly a decade.

Robyn Gatens, Deputy Director of the ISS informed, “There will be up to two short private astronaut missions per year”. The arrangements for the trip were now being left to Boeing and SpaceX, NASA said.

Initially, every year NASA will allow two private trips to the station, each trip will last up to 30 days. But the trip won’t be cheap. NASA has estimated the cost of a flight would be around $50 million per seat. In addition to this, the visitors have to pay NASA for the food, storage and communication.

NASA’s Chief Financial Officer Jeff DeWit also told a news conference in New York, “If you look at the pricing and you add it up, back of a napkin, it would be roughly $35,000 a night, per astronaut. But it won’t come with any Hilton or Marriott points”.

NASA’s Russian counterpart Roscosmos has already allowed a number of private citizens at the station.