I was reading the article ISS: Closing in on completion, in the March 2009 issue of Aerospace America, written by Astronaut Tomas D. Jones and this part of the article caught my eye.
Congress declared the station a national laboratory in 2005, and NASA is actively seeking government and industry customers who want to use the ISS for a wide variety of research and applications. NASA will not charge for utilities and crew time, but experimenters must find their own transportation to the station, a major obstacle for smaller enterprises. Low-cost commercial transportation to [low earth orbit] (from SpaceX, Orbital Sciences and others) may offer relief.
By doing this, NASA and the US government is opening the door for any company to get involved in space. Yes, launching to space is expensive, but building a space lab is even more expensive and a well thought out plan should attract enough investors to fund prototype transportation. So, the ISS might be the proving ground for space industry as industrial methods are developed on the station. This could lead to a boom in the space industry as well as manufacturing in general as new materials and techniques as created.
Also, I strongly believe that space-based manufacturing will be the center piece to any space habitation efforts. By providing a incubator for space industry, the ISS could lead to space habitation. A mass scale space habitation effort, just like any other macro-engineering project, would be a huge boost to the economy.
Well, those are my thoughts, what does this quote mean for you?
