"The station and its laboratories will represent an unprecedented opportunity in the years to come for economic development of products and services available only through space," said Mark Uhran, NASA director of Space Utilization and Product Development.
"We are opening up opportunity to involve private investment ... and that is a complete change, from my perspective, in the way NASA has operated over the past decade."
He said that from 15 years of up-and-down space shuttle flights, while yielding tantalizing clues to potential commercial products and processes, the actual research time accumulated in orbit amounts to less than 6 months.
"Bell Labs doesnt do anything in six months. That is why continuously operating laboratories in space are so important," Uhran said.
If all goes as planned, the first three-person crew will begin to live and work on board the ISS by the close of 2000. A key event will be the launch of the U.S. Laboratory, a major site for carrying out commercial space development. That launch could come later this year, although a slip is likely, say industry insiders.
How best to use the ISS for commercial gain remains in the to-be-determined column. Thats the output from an independent market study done for NASA, completed last December. The study was undertaken by KPMG, a private think tank.
That report concluded that "future commercial markets for the ISS are still too premature, and any market study would be wholly speculative. In the larger sense, markets for the ISS must be nurtured, rather than studied," the KPMG study team found.
Uhran told SPACE.com that the new ISS commercial plan has tackled a set of thorny and persistent obstacles that spur profit-making ventures in space. What NASA is offering now, he said, is a pricing policy that is firm, a process for working with private companies that is rational and stable and how to deal with the issue of protecting intellectual property.
"We have removed the three most persistent barriers which people have claimed impede a successful commercial program," said Uhran. "We are opening up opportunity to involve private investment...and that is a complete change, from my perspective, in the way NASA has operated over the past decade."
Still to come is the establishment of a non-government organization (NGO) to manage utilization of the U.S. share of the ISS, a step that was recommended last December by a National Research Council study group. To move toward the NGO idea, a NASA study is now underway, to be completed this summer, on how much it costs to operate and maintain the International Space Station.
One possible outcome of this work could be the creation of a consortium, one that has an academic component for the science; an engineering and aerospace component for the technology and perhaps a venture capital or investment banking element for commercial development. "It would get NASA out of the business of managing day-to-day utilization of the ISS," Uhran said.
Underscoring the fact that the space station program is a 16-country international venture, Uhran said that a multi-nation consultative group has been established. This group is moving forward to define all markets that are applicable to the International Space Station. An objective is to have all ISS partners agree that their respective governments will not subsidize marketable ventures, "so we can put this on a level playing field," he said.
Christopher Flaherty, a NASA strategic planning specialist, said a forthcoming pricing list for companies to purchase space on U.S.-controlled racks and pallets, power, cooling, crew time and data transmission will come in the form of "bundles." There are service bundles for companies to procure services both inside and outside the station. Additional services can be negotiated on a case-by-case basis. Also, NASA can waive all or part of the cost to help companies get a short-term, but firm commercial foothold, he said.
"But in the long run, as a company begins to make a profit, they have to begin to pay the cost. We dont want to end up with profit-making businesses relying on government subsidies," Uhran added.
The ISS price list is to be released within 10 to 15 days after NASAs budget is announced on Monday, Uhran said.
General reaction to the NASA plan was positive, but many, like Charles Walker, Boeing's senior manager for Civil Space Business Development, are taking a wait-and-see attitude.
"I think theyve made a very important and significant entree to commercial interests that are thinking of using the space station," said Walker. "Clearly these processes are yet to be demonstrated as workable in terms of getting industry to utilize the resources of the space station for profit."
"There still are a lot of open questions. There needs to be demonstration of both capability and trust, and that needs to happen soon if NASA is serious about encouraging and supporting industry. My perspective is that we are positively buoyed but still skeptical, if not still a little cynical," Walker said.
NASA announced that the entire plan and related documents are available at
advertisement
