NASA is considering turning over control of 30% of its portion of the International Space Station (ISS) to a commercial operator. As a government agency, NASA has found it hard to attract interest in the space base for commercial use, gaining only 1% of business for the commercial capacity of the ISS.
Dan Tam, NASA's director of commercialisation, says he wants to "turn over the keys of the ISS and the Space Shuttle, so NASA only pays when we use them". Observers believe that until the ISS moves from construction to full operations, commercial interest will be limited. Commercial operations could include biological, chemical, technological, materials science and biomedical research.
High costs, however, will prevent many potential customers from using the ISS, with a single experiment on the station costing $20 million.
• The Russian Energia company says that R1.5 billion ($53 million) is required to enable the country to meet its international obligations to the ISS. "Practically all the financial possibilities have been exhausted," it says, warning that work on the project may have to be suspended.
Source: Flight International
