But it could be good for Houston, so…
Axiom Space launched a high-stakes mission Friday, sending three paying customers to the International Space Station as Houston seeks to anchor a new era of human spaceflight.
The crew, tucked inside a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule, launched from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center at 10:17 a.m. CDT. They’re scheduled to reach the space station Saturday morning and spend eight days there.
American Larry Connor, 72, Canadian Mark Pathy, 52, and Israeli Eytan Stibbe, 64, are not the first people to buy tickets to the International Space Station. But their privately funded mission — each reportedly paying tens of millions of dollars — is notable because it’s the first all-private crew to visit the station. Previous missions have been shepherded by a government-paid astronaut. The Axiom Space commander, Michael López-Alegría, 63, is an Axiom employee and former NASA astronaut.
There’s a lot riding on this mission. The crew must show that private astronauts aren’t a nuisance to International Space Station operations. Houston-based Axiom Space must learn to conduct human spaceflight missions before launching its own commercial space station. And Houston must show that it can continue supporting human spaceflight as NASA trusts companies to own and operate the hardware that protect people in space.
“The space industry, as a whole, is currently in a massive switch from completely government to commercial,” said Meagan Crawford, co-founder of Houston-based venture capital firm SpaceFund. “And in order for Houston to maintain its moniker of Space City, we’ve really got to cultivate that startup environment here.”
Houston has a long and storied history in human spaceflight. When astronauts called home from the Apollo spacecraft, space shuttle and International Space Station, they spoke to folks at NASA’s Johnson Space Center.
But lately, it’s not just NASA sending people into space. The Axiom Space mission, Ax-1, is the sixth human spaceflight mission launched by Hawthorne, Calif.-based SpaceX.
For missions to the ISS, astronauts train on the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule in California and learn the International Space Station systems in Houston. Spacewalks are practiced in Houston in a giant swimming pool called the Neutral Buoyancy Laboratory.
But as companies begin to own and operate the systems used to launch people into space, lower them onto the moon and shelter them in low-Earth orbit, their facilities may or may not be located in Houston.
“Houston has the possibility of becoming a place where a lot of people who know how to ‘do space’ live and want to start their own businesses,” said John Logsdon, founder of George Washington University’s Space Policy Institute.
NASA is willing to share its facilities and expertise in operations, medicine, food and spacesuits, said Johnson Space Center Director Vanessa Wyche.
“We’re in a renaissance,” Wyche said. “In order for us to explore — go onto the moon, go onto Mars — it’s going to take all of us. It’s going to take government, it’s going to take commercial industry and it’s going to take the international community.
“I want Houston to continue to be the human spaceflight hub. For the world,” she said.
I don’t have a whole lot to add here. I can’t say I’m a fan of rick guy space tourism, but it’s not like I can do much to stop it. Maybe some benefits will eventually trickle down to the rest of us, I dunno. Better these guys take the risk of this activity than me, that’s for sure. CultureMap has more.