NASA buys seat on private astronaut flightNovember 29, 2019 - 12:20 AMT PanARMENIAN.Net - NASA wants to purchase a seat on a private astronaut flight in the next five years, the agency announced earlier this week, Forbes reports. It’s another move that should open up the International Space Station to astronauts outside the government sphere — which is a big difference from today. Most people in space are government employees. To be fair, a handful of space tourists have visited the orbiting complex, such as entrepreneur Dennis Tito and Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte. But these people paid large sums of money to Russian officials and were not employed by any company. Future private astronauts may be employees of a firm, sent up for 15 to 30 days for a specific set of experiments or other work that can only be done in space. NASA recognizes its role as a government reference customer to stimulate the space economy. That’s one reason that it purchased so many ISS cargo flights from SpaceX and Northrop Grumman over the years, and why it gave government contracts to SpaceX and Boeing to fly government astronauts on private spacecraft in the near future (perhaps 2020, if all goes to plan). But private astronaut flights are another frontier altogether. The agency has a vision of opening up the ISS to a series of companies that would bring up their own astronauts, paying essentially a rental fee to use NASA space facilities for their own work. And NASA plans to put a government astronaut on at least one of these flights to give a bit of seed money, which would help boost the efforts to bring more private astronauts into space. Top stories Authorities said a total of 192 Azerbaijani troops were killed and 511 were wounded during Azerbaijan’s offensive. In 2023, the Azerbaijani government will increase the country’s defense budget by more than 1.1 billion manats ($650 million). The bill, published on Monday, is designed to "eliminate the shortcomings of an unreasonably broad interpretation of the key concept of "compatriot". The earthquake caused a temporary blackout, damaged many buildings and closed a number of rural roads. Partner news | Government reveals details from Pashinyan’s meeting in border village Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has met with a group of residents of a border village in Armenia’s northern Tavush province Narek Manasyan wins European Boxing Championships silver for Armenia Armenia’s Narek Manasyan (92kg) won Armenia’s second silver medal at the European Boxing Championships 2024 on April 28. Blinken urges Azerbaijan to continue negotiations with Armenia Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has urged Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to continue negotiations with Armenia. Pashinyan, Blinken talk Armenia-U.S. ties over the phone Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had a phone conversation with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on April 28, Pashinyan’s office reports. |