Over the next several months, NASA will finalize a strategy for its operations in low-Earth orbit after 2030. Then, toward the end of next year, the space agency will award contracts to one or more private companies to develop small space stations for which NASA and other space agencies will become customers, rather than operators. But none of this is certain, and as NASA faces a transition from its long-established operations on the International Space Station.
I think that last bit of the article is really worth pointing out. They spent a decade and $100 billion building the International Space Station. And so far, they’ve spent what $1.6 billion on commercial space station stuff? Thats 1.6%. Clearly, that is not enough. But even if they went up by like 5x, that would still only be 8 billion or 8% of ISS.
What is “commercial space station stuff”?
Giving private companies the funding they need to launch their own space station and then becoming a commercial customer of said space station.