What happens next with NASA’s plan to replace the ISS? Source: “It could get ugly”

"It reminds me of sort of Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football."

See full article...

 

[Tactical Finesse]

The problem is quite simple. You want to make commercial space stations; how do they pay the bills they accrue by charging to what customers?

It is the same thing as "privatize" health insurance or private power utilities. Okay fine--you make something non-government infra, that you want people to rely on...but don't want to fund with taxes--so everyone has to pay more for it, so that it turns a profit for someone. And then, down the line, people complain when something that is systemitized and designed to be profitable and not affordable/accessible, is not affordable.

 

[paulfdietz]

Private space stations can't get by on bullshit about the supposed value they are producing. They need actual selfish paying customers who insist on getting their money's worth. Airy handwaving about supposed public benefit won't cut it.

If you are feeding at the trough you don't want to be forced to justify your consumption, and will argue strongly against this sort of thing as weak and shortsighted. But the great strength of the private approach is that it cuts through the self-serving bullshit about the supposed value being produced and forces the efforts to actually demonstrate that value in the hard unforgiving market.

 

[MST2.021K]

So now they're pushing for the Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets option?

Need to open those contracts to a much wider scale.

 

[Tactical Finesse]

Private space stations can't get by on bullshit about the supposed value they are producing. They need actual selfish paying customers who insist on getting their money's worth. Airy handwaving about supposed public benefit won't cut it.

If you are feeding at the trough you don't want to be forced to justify your consumption, and will argue strongly against this sort of thing as weak and shortsighted. But the great strength of the private approach is that it cuts through the self-serving bullshit about the supposed value being produced and forces the efforts to actually demonstrate that value in the hard unforgiving market.

Sorry, the entire years-long LLM bubble is calling on Line 4, and asking to speak to you.

 

[adam.i]

They also mentioned that the modules after core could be from other companies and at least the core module would be owned and operated by NASA after delivery. I didn't hear a clear indication of how long NASA would operate, or who would be responsible for ensuring interoperability between these later modules.

The whole announcement on commercial viability might become self-fulfilling, as I can't imagine investors wanting to jump in at this point.

 

[markgo]

The problem is quite simple. You want to make commercial space stations; how do they pay the bills they accrue by charging to what customers?

It is the same thing as "privatize" health insurance or private power utilities. Okay fine--you make something non-government infra, that you want people to rely on...but don't want to fund with taxes--so everyone has to pay more for it, so that it turns a profit for someone. And then, down the line, people complain when something that is systemitized and designed to be profitable and not affordable/accessible, is not affordable.

Except that there is vast demand for healthcare and modern society runs on power.

There is very little economic demand for a permanent NASA run space station. The scientific and development benefits are clear, but it’s never going to be anything but a money sink. So the private market costs will be astronomical (heh).

 

[fenris_uy]

Putting the core module in the ISS would mean that the new station would need to keep the same orbital parameters as ISS right? That would mean that the US would not have communications with the station while it's over Russia, right?

How are they expecting to have full orbit communications with the new stations?

I would expect Congress to get involved fairly soon to settle the debate, perhaps as part of the coming fiscal year budget process, or maybe even before.

Didn't Congress already got involved? Didn't they set NASA on a timer of 60 to 180 days to define this program?

https://meincmagazine.com/space/2026/...re-on-nasa-to-support-private-space-stations/

Within 60 days, publicly release the requirements for commercial space stations in low-Earth orbit
Within 90 days, release the final “request for proposals” to solicit industry responses
Within 180 days, enter into contracts with “two or more” commercial providers for such stations

 

[Tactical Finesse]

Except that there is vast demand for healthcare and modern society runs on power.

There is very little economic demand for a permanent NASA run space station. The scientific and development benefits are clear, but it’s never going to be anything but a money sink. So the private market costs will be astronomical (heh).

Oh I know--my point was that there are negative consequences for establishing this, presuming for argument they can do it. At the moment there's no reason any commercial entity would do this. Maybe sometime in the future they might. It depends on how skeptical or cynical you are about the Moon landing/base efforts.

BUT, there are consequences.

Namely that I can guarantee you that if this commercialization effort is successful--everyone will be unhappy about it. Just like people are rather upset at PG&E for killing more people as a result of wildfires due to their deferred maintenance practices than even prolific serial killers. Oh, and LOL ERCOT. And UHC had to hire a new CEO because--well you know. What has commercial rocketry gotten us? Some rich jerks going to space and shouting YAHOO when they landed--and a whole lot of nothing for anyone else.

 

[mannyvelo]

Well, as a "Flying J in Space" the station could provide fuel and supplies. But nobody wants fuel or supplies right now, because nobody is designing for it.

In any case nobody's going to build a way station in space unless they can collect a toll. Maybe it'll be paid for via launch fees, the way that our "universal service fees" subsidizes telcos.

 

[wahoo_M1]

"Other commercial space advocates say NASA’s assessment of the commercial market is not credible."

The immediate and aggressive backlash to the possible change in approach by NASA seems to validate that NASA is in fact correct - the NASA market is the only real market. If there were truly a substantive commercial use case, commercial providers would continue building and investing to their own specifications to win that commercial market.
Commercial LEO stations of the types proposed by all the current CLD players (i.e. not including the possible SpaceX Starship "temporary station" thing) are really just a GOCO model in disguise.

 

[Rival Vector Plot]

The problem is quite simple. You want to make commercial space stations; how do they pay the bills they accrue by charging to what customers?

It is the same thing as "privatize" health insurance or private power utilities. Okay fine--you make something non-government infra, that you want people to rely on...but don't want to fund with taxes--so everyone has to pay more for it, so that it turns a profit for someone. And then, down the line, people complain when something that is systemitized and designed to be profitable and not affordable/accessible, is not affordable.

Think of the gained efficiencies in all manner of human endeavors if we removed the profit component, allowing all resources to be thrown at the core issue on hand.

 

[Zizy]

It took a complete failure of a wealthy nation to build something as simple as a FTTH network to find some use for rapid and cheap rocket launch capability. The space station doesn't have that benefit.

 

[jhodge]

So over-complicated. How about this: If NASA wants a replacement for the ISS, they should buy or build one. If private industry thinks space stations can be profitable, they can go build them and find out. If not, then don't. Private industry seems fine with launching thousands of satellites, because there it a plausible payoff. Apparently some players think orbital datacenter make sense, and as long as they're finding out with their own money, whatever.

Personally, I'd be fine with NASA building or buying a new station to be used for scientific, diplomatic, and other public purposes and paying for it with my tax dollars.

I do understand the concept of 'priming the pump', but this doesn't look to be a case where anyone can articulate how it ever transitions from publicly-funded to profit-making, so I don't think the concept applies.

 

[fensox]

Their intent is to never dock with the International Space Station, nor go through the ultra-rigorous and expensive certification process such a maneuver would require

This doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the safety of the proposed commercial space stations.

 

[paulfdietz]

Sorry, the entire years-long LLM bubble is calling on Line 4, and asking to speak to you.

Sure, bubbles occur even in the private sector, because no one is perfectly prescient. Will LLMs do what they are promised? We can't know until the experiment is run.

But what the private sector does is respond to the evidence of success or failure. Efforts that don't work are brutally pruned away. This is unlike in the public sector, where failure can persist for decades, even generations, even with unambiguous evidence the approach has failed. Just look at NASA for ample evidence of this.

 

[plugh]

The issue is people at NASA looked at the financial numbers for a commercial space station and they don't add up. The cost of developing a space station is more than private investment and NASA subsidies can afford. The cost of operating a space station is significantly more than any likely (or even unlikely) revenue streams.

NASA doesn't want to fund a space station that will quickly go broke. And NASA does want a LEO presence. A program that looks like certain failure is not appealing.

 

[paulfdietz]

Think of the gained efficiencies in all manner of human endeavors if we removed the profit component, allowing all resources to be thrown at the core issue on hand.

Yes, because planned economies were so notably efficient. /s

The reality is the polar opposite of what you're saying there. Removing profit destroys the distributed information collection and optimization system that allows efficiency.

 

[plugh]

Sure, bubbles occur even in the private sector, because no one is perfectly prescient. Will LLMs do what they are promised? We can't know until the experiment is run.

But what the private sector does is respond to the evidence of success or failure. Efforts that don't work are brutally pruned away. This is unlike in the public sector, where failure can persist for decades, even generations, even with unambiguous evidence the approach has failed. Just look at NASA for ample evidence of this.

Space is difficult, expensive, and unforgiving. The US space program has been the world leading space program for over 50 years. I'd say NASA has done a really good job of keeping it that way despite unstable budgets and a lot of political meddling.

EDIT: for clarity

 

[paulfdietz]

The scientific and development benefits are clear,

What are the scientific benefits of a space station? Scientists for decades have been pointing out the science case for ISS was largely bullshit, based on massive misrepresentation. I'm sure you can find a result here or there that has nonzero value, but I'm also sure the ROI will be horrifically bad compared to what could have been achieved elsewhere (for example, with satellites or ground based research labs.)

ISS is a great example of how such public efforts fail: they are intended to produce a pretense of value, not actual value. There is no mechanism to keep them honest, nothing to stop a Theranos-like effort to survive for decades.

 

[Tactical Finesse]

Sure, bubbles occur even in the private sector, because no one is perfectly prescient. Will LLMs do what they are promised? We can't know until the experiment is run.

But what the private sector does is respond to the evidence of success or failure. Efforts that don't work are brutally pruned away. This is unlike in the public sector, where failure can persist for decades, even generations, even with unambiguous evidence the approach has failed. Just look at NASA for ample evidence of this.

Does it?

It is now 2026. Elon Musk has been promising self-driving cars "next year" every year for over 10 years now. Tesla stock has a P/E of 350! Please explain how the private sector has responded to his evidence of failure...other than handing him even more money.

The myth of the efficient and rational private sector is a myth.

 

[Statistical]

Who will come to the space stations? It’s not at all clear that the European Space Agency would pay private stations (or transportation providers such as SpaceX) directly for time on orbit. Typically, they have “bartered” services with NASA for crew time on the International Space Station. NASA is also dubious that the “orbital economy” touted by the private companies will come to pass. “We can’t entertain fiction,” NASA Associate Administrator Amit Kshatriya said this week. “It has to be grounded in reality.”

ESA just announced they have purchased a contract for EPIC (ESA Provided Institutional Crew) from SpaceX which will use a Crew Dragon to deliver four ESA astronauts to the ISS in 2028.

"Commercial" space stations will never be commercial in the sense Joe Sixpack flies to one on a whim but they could provide access to a HSF for other nations with smaller budgets. Paying $250M to SpaceX to transport and another $400M to rent space in a station for six months is a lot more viable for nation states then building their own entire HSF program. Yes NASA likely will pay 70%+ of the costs in the way some niche suppliers have one major customers who is the bulk of their revenue but others countries can be involved without having to go through NASA.

You may ask why not just partner with NASA. Well the reality is the US has over the last decade proven itself to be a shit partner not just in space but in everything. NASA not helping with cancelling gateway. I mean even if it is the right call NASA left partners holding the bag. Partners with smaller budgets where they can't just ignore the spending they just wasted for nothing.

If SpaceX fails to deliver at least the ESA can sue SpaceX in court. Compare that to the billions it just flushed down the toilet building modules for NASA gateway station with zero recourse.

 

[Feldercarb]

"After Isaacman became administrator four months ago, the issue of what to do with commercial space stations has been one of several raging fires his team has had to put out. In some ways, it now appears to be the most intractable."

I sorta thought it would be the easiest? Sort of a modern day Skylab. One-shot launch. I figured Starship could put a fairly hefty unit into orbit.

What's the point of connecting to ISS? Aren't we going to deep six it (or whatever the orbital equivalent is) in a few years. It's also in a wanky orbit.

How to manage the thing? Surely NASA has years of experience running the ISS by now. All those personnel are going to be looking for something to do. Have NASA own and operate, and companies or universities rent time in the unit? Company owns, and pays NASA a management fee?

 

[Statistical]

NASA doesn't want to fund a space station that will quickly go broke. And NASA does want a LEO presence. A program that looks like certain failure is not appealing.

If NASA wants an LEO presence it is unlikely to be any cheaper with a NASA "owned" station.

Yes commercial stations are unlikely to be profitable without copious spending by NASA but if NASA builds its own station it will be even more copious amounts of spending. The ISS is literally the most expensive item created in human history. Total lifecycle cost is on the order of $150B.

NASA estimate it that a private station would cost $5B to $10B and have operating costs of $1B to $2B a year. Do you think a NASA ISS 2.0 would be cheaper than that.

So the two statements are mutually exclusive. If NASA is unwilling to pay a substantial portion of the costs for a commercial station they certainly aren't going to have a presence in LEO for less than that.

 

[Statistical]

"After Isaacman became administrator four months ago, the issue of what to do with commercial space stations has been one of several raging fires his team has had to put out. In some ways, it now appears to be the most intractable."

I sorta thought it would be the easiest? Sort of a modern day Skylab. One-shot launch. I figured Starship could put a fairly hefty unit into orbit.

What's the point of connecting to ISS? Aren't we going to deep six it (or whatever the orbital equivalent is) in a few years. It's also in a wanky orbit.

How to manage the thing? Surely NASA has years of experience running the ISS by now. All those personnel are going to be looking for something to do. Have NASA own and operate, and companies or universities rent time in the unit? Company owns, and pays NASA a management fee?

Yeah this strikes me as more what Eric began with. NASA is bad with change. NASA is always bad with change. NASA has never and likely will never be good with change.

NASA can't see an alternative because the reality is NASA has owned and operated its own station for 30 years and change is hard.

 

[graylshaped]

Think of the gained efficiencies in all manner of human endeavors if we removed the profit component, allowing all resources to be thrown at the core issue on hand.

Yes. Think of how awesome things will be when the one reliable driver of efficiency and innovation is removed.

 

[Statistical]

Putting the core module in the ISS would mean that the new station would need to keep the same orbital parameters as ISS right? That would mean that the US would not have communications with the station while it's over Russia, right?

Why would that be the case? That isn't the case for ISS now.

Now there are certainly reasons to consider a lower inclination but that isn't one of them.

How are they expecting to have full orbit communications with the new stations?

I don't believe that is an expectation or something anyone would ever consider.

 

[Tactical Finesse]

Yeah this strikes me as more what Eric began with. NASA is bad with change. NASA is always bad with change. NASA has never and likely will never be good with change.

NASA can't see an alternative because the reality is NASA has owned and operated its own station for 30 years and change is hard.

Change is expensive and change costs money--and there's also opportunity cost to it. And NASA's budget is a pinball that Congress loves to meddle in (See Senate Launch System), combined with political appointees running who sometimes know or don't know what they are doing.

 

[Albino_Boo]

Human space flight doesn't make money. Until someone works out a way to make money from it, its not going to be anything other than a national status symbol.

 

[Albino_Boo]

Why would that be the case? That isn't the case for ISS now.

Now there are certainly reasons to consider a lower inclination but that isn't one of them.



I don't believe that is an expectation or something anyone would ever consider.

Why are the Russians going to cooperate to provide the down link?

 

[Purpleivan]

When the first space station went into orbit, there was scientific value to them, but also a strong nationalistic one, i.e. a manned presence in earth orbit. It was relatively practical (at a national level) to do, more so than for example having the same presence on the moon. So, for reasons both scientific and nationalistic, there have been space stations in orbit, for most of the last half century.

But now, with commercial space industry having an increasingly large presence there, the assumption has built up that space stations would also "go private", like so much else has. However, commercial companies don't care much about their home nations having the national benefit of having a "presence in orbit", or scientific research for the most part. Without those pillars to stand on, relying on the commercial viability alone leaves manned orbital stations a bit wobbly.

Even if scientific research were to be of value to commercial space, there may be in many cases, the option to carry out that work using an unmanned station or orbital/suborbital vehicle. It's often said that having a human on a moon or planet is massively more valuable than an unmanned probe. That may be the case for exploration of a distance body, but carrying out of carefully planned experiments, doesn't have that degree of the unknown to deal with. Without "orange soil" (Apollo 17, Shorty crater) type moments of discovery to be had, why would a company go to the massive expense of having a human set up and carry out experiments and observations, when something unmanned (set up in advanced and prepackaged for the task) and vastly cheaper, can do it just as well.

Fundamentally, manned presence anywhere in space is hard and it's expensive, far more so than any other environment that humans have visited. That means that any activity carried out by humans, even in the relative safety (compared with the moon or Mars) of earth orbit, which can be done by something unmanned, at much lower cost, then the cost/benefit equation is had to satisfy.

I'm not saying that all activity in space should be unmanned, but using delicate and precious meatbags, to carry out experiments, or making observations of other kinds, in earth orbit, doesn't make much sense, without national pride, or some other, non-commercial aspect, applying to them.

One question to think about. If there were to suddenly be zero money paid by governments to allow humans to work in earth orbit specifically, what tasks would commercial companies be paying the huge cost for having humans do up there, that couldn't be done by something unmanned, at a much lower cost and risk to human life.

 

[fenris_uy]

Why would that be the case? That isn't the case for ISS now.

Now there are certainly reasons to consider a lower inclination but that isn't one of them.



I don't believe that is an expectation or something anyone would ever consider.

ISS is a partnership with Russia, so Russia allows NASA to comunicate with the ISS using the Russian ground stations in Russia. The new comercial station isn't going to be a partnership with Russia, so they don't need to allow NASA or the comercial operator to use their ground stations.

 

[Statistical]

ISS is a partnership with Russia, so Russia allows NASA to comunicate with the ISS using the Russian ground stations in Russia. The new comercial station isn't going to be a partnership with Russia, so they don't need to allow NASA or the comercial operator to use their ground stations.

Yeah that is not needed. ISS primary communication system is a satellites network in orbit called TDRSS. Russian ground stations are not required. TDRSS is also used for various other NASA satellites in Earth orbit like Hubble. It is the near earth equivalent of the deep space network (DSN).

However there are more capable communication networks in orbit today compared to the 1980s so NASA is planning on phasing out TDRSS in favor of just paying commercial providers. The plan is for CSP to replace TDRSS by 2030 although like most things that date will probably slip.

https://spacenews.com/nasa-selects-six-companies-to-demonstrate-commercial-successors-to-tdrs/

Fun fact for years it confused people that TDRSS should have way more bandwidth than NASA assets were using. Even NASA internal documents on available bandwidth and how they divided it up among various assets just did not match what the network should be able of based on power and frequency ranges. It wasn't even close the network "should" have supports 5x maybe 10x what NASA reported it was capable of.

It turns out the NRO was using most of the TDRSS bandwidth covertly because where is the best place to hide something but in plain sight. To be fair NRO also paid for most of the costs as well so it is more like NASA got to use this network at low cost to be the public cover for a military orbital data transfer network.

 

[stefan_lec]

If NASA wants an LEO presence it is unlikely to be any cheaper with a NASA "owned" station.

Yes commercial stations are unlikely to be profitable without copious spending by NASA but if NASA builds its own station it will be even more copious amounts of spending. The ISS is literally the most expensive item created in human history. Total lifecycle cost is on the order of $150B.

NASA estimate it that a private station would cost $5B to $10B and have operating costs of $1B to $2B a year. Do you think a NASA ISS 2.0 would be cheaper than that.

So the two statements are mutually exclusive. If NASA is unwilling to pay a substantial portion of the costs for a commercial station they certainly aren't going to have a presence in LEO for less than that.

Yeah, you’ve nailed the critical point here I think - there’s no way giving NASA more ownership and control will make things cheaper or faster. If they can’t afford to put an RFP for a station out for bids, they can’t afford to build the core of it themselves either. Doesn’t make sense.

I’m thinking it’s really one of two things:

1) Favoritism to Axiom Space. From the article:

Some are concerned that it appears to be a giveaway to Axiom Space, which seemingly is already building the core module that NASA is seeking (this is the Payload Power Thermal Module). Axiom is already under contract with NASA to launch and attach this module to the International Space Station in a couple of years. There have been longstanding concerns that Axiom, co-founded by a former director of the International Space Station Program, has been subject to agency favoritism.

2) Some sort of deal made with Congress in order to get the SLS changes through - maybe part of that deal behind the scenes was to issue a traditional cost-plus pork contract for old space to make the core module?

It definitely seems true that Congress isn’t giving CLD enough funding to succeed. Maybe this new plan is the only thing they could get by Congress.

 

[AliSard]

The problem is quite simple. You want to make commercial space stations; how do they pay the bills they accrue by charging to what customers?

It is the same thing as "privatize" health insurance or private power utilities. Okay fine--you make something non-government infra, that you want people to rely on...but don't want to fund with taxes--so everyone has to pay more for it, so that it turns a profit for someone. And then, down the line, people complain when something that is systemitized and designed to be profitable and not affordable/accessible, is not affordable.

It’s worse than that. Q1 thinking believes that basic research comes from other people. Privatization here is incredibly shortsighted.

 

[stefan_lec]

Whoa, I hadn’t heard this before;

Building space station modules is really hard. Despite billions of dollars and efforts by NASA and the European Space Agency to build new deep space station modules—the HALO and iHAB elements of the now-shelved Lunar Gateway—have both faced significant delays. There are rumors that both modules are actually corroded, perhaps beyond repair.

How on earth are the modules corroded? Did they build the things and then leave them sitting outside in the weather or something? That’s nuts.

 

[raschumacher]

On SpaceNews, Dan comments that this is an attempt to replace Russian life-support components:
https://spacenews.com/industry-says...mercial-space-station-plans-create-confusion/

 

[stefan_lec]

It’s worse than that. Q1 thinking believes that basic research comes from other people. Privatization here is incredibly shortsighted.

Not really. “Privatization” in this particular case just refers to how NASA structures its contracts to buy stuff it needs. There’s two options:

1) Traditional: NASA makes a cost-plus contract detailing an extremely specific equipment design that industry builds. NASA has a ton of control over the design, and they end up owning it.

2) Commercial: NASA puts out a contract for the services it needs (launch this there, host experiments and astronauts on orbit here for this long), and industry does its own design and retains ownership of the equipment. NASA agrees to pay a fixed-fee up front for their use of the equipment, and often has some fixed payments when development milestones are reached. Company can sell services to others with the same equipment to recoup some of their dev costs.

If the market for CLD isn’t really there outside of nasa, that doesn’t prevent you from doing Option #2. It just means NASA (well, Congress, really) needs to guarantee a high enough fixed-fee that it’s worth it for companies to build the station.