I love that they are doing this, but I am worried it may not be enough to keep the ISS up past 2024, but it is a good first step. Some context for those that h

I love that they are doing this, but I am worried it may not be enough to keep the ISS up past 2024, but it is a good first step. Some context for those that haven’t been following closely: It costs NASA over 4 billion a year to maintain the ISS. [0] While the vast majority of that cost is transportation to/from the ISS (around 2.4 billion), there is a sizeable chuck that if they could “offload” to the private sector, may allow NASA to keep the ISS in orbit longer than currently planned. The problem is, at least until they grow a true market, that market isn’t big enough to support that maintenance. So, I believe the strategy (which makes sense) is try and get a true market/interest in the ISS going. If they can do that successfully, it should lower the cost for everyone, potentially allowing for even more things to happen in LEO. So we will see, but I will note one of the biggest risks for SpaceX/Blue Origin/others doing commercial resupply is that once ISS disappears, there is no ready customer/market for their commercial offerings for crew. No way faster to kill the infant commercial crew space industry than to starve it of revenue. [0] https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy_2018_budget_presentation_media_telecon.pdf https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/atoms/files/fy_2018...