![]() ![]() “It’s time for NASA to start setting its sights toward deep space exploration and letting entrepreneurs move in behind us.” “I think now is the right time to start moving away from the International Space Station, which is really just a government monopoly on space destinations, and moving them over to the private sector,” says Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA. What happens next is anyone's guess, but there’s a good chance it will involve scrapping the ISS and using privately operated commercial space stations instead. NASA and the agency’s international partners have guaranteed support for the ISS until 2024, and some supporters in Congress have advocated extending the agency’s space station budget through 2028. Funding for the space station is scheduled to dry up this decade, although exactly when that will happen is still unclear. The ISS will mark 20 years of continuous human occupation on Saturday, but it’s unlikely to last another 20 years. The ISS is arguably the best thing we’ve ever done. ![]() It’s been a proving ground for futuristic technologies like organs on a chip and quantum communication terminals, and it's fostered the birth of a vibrant commercial space industry. It’s served as the platform for groundbreaking science experiments that have fundamentally changed our understanding of human biology, climate change, and the universe itself. It’s hosted hundreds of astronauts from 18 countries. For the past two decades, the International Space Station has been humanity’s home away from home. ![]()
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