NASA To Turn The ISS Into A Commercial Space Station?

NASA has been putting out a call for ideas that could put the International Space Station (ISS) to commercial use after it finishes its mission in 2024. The agency wants to take advantage of the "unique capabilities' of the low-Earth orbit facility.

Photo taken from ISS! pic.twitter.com/UQW727Kref

— Best of Galaxies (@BestGalaxyPics) July 22, 2016

Companies have been pushing for ideas since the beginning of July, and they have until the 29^th to pitch. While Engadget thinks that they won't necessarily turn the ISS into a marketplace, it should come as no surprise that the ISS could get a more private presence.

There is no surety as to what will happen to the ISS past 2024. However, The Space Review noted that if its partners will want to continue spending billions of dollars a year for the operational costs, it will be up to them, but nothing is certain to this point. For instance, NASA expects to wrap up the research it needs to finally be able to have a human exploration on Mars by the mid-2020s, ending its need for the government-operated space station.

This is where the private sector comes in: if they take over in developing one or more commercial stations that could serve as platforms for research, tourism, and other applications, BNASA could lease space to support the research they needed. Before they could do that, though, NASA has to get the ISS today to an independent space station by the mid-2020s, and how they can afford to do that is unclear.

Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA's associate administrator for human exploration and operations shared that the agency could provide a docking port - presumably the one being occupied by BEAM - as a commercial module in the future. He shared, "We essentially have one of the ports on the space station that we're going to make available to the private sector to go utilize how they want." The company to use the port, however, will be responsible for contracting commercial cargo, crew, and support for the module.