Axiom Space has announced that it will create an office park and manufacturing center at the Houston SpacePort at Ellington Field.
The development is a hopeful sign that, despite the drag of Congress, a commercial replacement of the International Space Station could take place. The United States has a chance of avoiding a “space gap” when the ISS reaches the end of its operational life, such as that occurred between the end of the space shuttle program and the first launch of the SpaceX Dragon mission commercial crew.
When Jim Bridenstine
James (Jim) Frederick Bridenstine NASA-Canadian Agreement Shows How Artemis Is An International Moonshot NASA selects the next Artemis moonwalkers as SpaceX pilots a spaceship. First to break the sound barrier, Chuck Yeager dies at 97 MORE Becoming a NASA administrator, one of the questions he faced was what to do to maintain a low Earth orbit presence after the ISS. The idea he and experts pushed at NASA is to encourage private companies to build their own space station. NASA would provide the necessary support by promising to become an anchor tenant for such runway facilities. However, the commercial space stations should also find private customers.
The problem is that Congress has been remarkably stingy when it comes to putting real money into this approach. The fiscal 2020 budget request included $ 150 million for commercial space stations. Congress funded support for private orbiting laboratories totaling $ 15 million. The budget request for the fiscal 2020 budget repeated the request for $ 150 million. Congress chose to be a little more generous: $ 17 million.
It’s not that Congress is against keeping a human presence in low Earth orbit. Indeed, as Space.com reports, the Senate version of the NASA authorization law extends the operational life of the ISS to 2030. Given the flood of scientific and technological discoveries that have emerged from the lab in orbit, it is not difficult understand why. Early critics of the ISS, including the late James Van Allen, have been thoroughly discredited.
Congress does not seem to have any urgency in planning a future beyond the ISS. The year 2030 is almost 10 years away. The elected politicians do what they are good at: they kick things off the road.
In the meantime, NASA is doing what it can, given the resources allocated, to jump-start a commercial space station industry. An inflatable module called the BEAM, courtesy of Bigelow Aerospace, has been attached to the ISS for the past three years. Unfortunately, a number of factors, not the least of which are the coronavirus pandemic, have forced Bigelow to lay off his entire workforce. Bigelow is now seeking NASA funding for a free-flying space station created with its inflatable modules, ironically using technology developed by space agencies called TransHab.
Axiom Space has won the knot to link one of its own modules to the ISS. Not waiting for Congress to raise funding for NASA, Axiom has announced a facility to manufacture space station modules at Houston’s Ellington SpacePort. The company will also have its own astronaut training facilities.
The new Axiom facility not only employs 1,000 people, but also represents a commitment to create a commercial space station industry. The fact that a company is willing to invest money to build the parts of a private space station should have implications for other stakeholders. Axiom should be able to attract commercial clients who are willing to pay for the time spent in orbit around research lab.
The positioning of the Axiom plant in Texas is no accident, either. The Texas congressional delegation has, for obvious reasons, supported NASA and, increasingly, the commercial space industry that has expanded its presence in the Lone Star State in recent years. Good old-fashioned politics that will make House members and senators prefer funding projects that mean jobs in their countries will be combined with sound space policy to increase funding in the coming years.
It’s no coincidence that the Axiom facility is about a five-hour drive from the growing SpaceX spaceport in Boca Chica, near the southernmost tip of Texas. Undoubtedly the CEO of SpaceX Elon Musk
Elon Reeve MuskWorld’s richest people added .8T to their combined net worth in 2020 Trump ends Obama’s 12-year run as most admired man: Gallup Apple CEO ignored meeting request to discuss Tesla sale, Musk says MORE would like to launch completed modules into space, using the mighty Starship rocket and later crews and cargo.
In the midst of a pandemic, part of a space future is taking shape in South Texas. This time it is driven by the private sector. NASA is best off jumping on board or at risk of being left behind.
Mark Whittington, who writes extensively on space and politics, has published a political study on space exploration entitled Why Is It So Hard To Go Back To The Moon? as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond.” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner. He is published in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, USA Today, the LA Times and the Washington Post, among others.