Feustel is now lead astronaut for Vast, which he advised on the new station’s interior design. He also created a months-long program to prepare customers to live and work there. Crew members (up to four at a time) will arrive at Haven-1 via a SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, which will dock to the station and remain attached throughout each 10-day stay. (Vast hasn’t publicly said who will fly on its first missions or announced the cost of a ticket, though competing firms have charged tens of millions of dollars for similar trips.)
In this artist's rendering, the Haven-1 space station is shown in orbit docked with the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft. VAST
Haven-1 is intended as a temporary facility, to be followed by a bigger, permanent station called Haven-2. Vast will begin launching Haven-2’s modules in 2028 and says it will be able to support a crew by 2030. That’s about when NASA will start decommissioning the ISS, which has operated for almost 30 years. Instead of replacing it, NASA and its partners intend to carry out research aboard commercial stations like those built by Vast, Axiom, and Sierra.
I recently caught up with Feustel in Lisbon at the tech conference Web Summit, where he was speaking about his role at Vast and the company’s ambitions.
Responses have been edited and condensed.
What are you hoping this new wave of commercial space stations will enable people to do?
Ideally, we’re creating access. The paradigm that we’ve seen for 25 years is primarily US-backed missions to the International Space Station, and [NASA] operating that station in coordination with other nations. But [it’s] still limited to 16 or 17 primary partners in the ISS program.
Following NASA’s intentions, we are planning to become a service provider to not only the US government, but other sovereign nations around the world, to allow greater access to a low-Earth-orbit platform. We can be a service provider to other organizations and nations that are planning to build a human spaceflight program.
Today, you’re Vast’s lead astronaut after you were initially brought on to advise the company on the design of Haven-1 and Haven-2. What are some of the things that you've weighed in on?