In remarks this week to a Texas space organization, a key Senate staff member said an “extension” of the International Space Station is on the table and that NASA needs to accelerate a program to replace the aging station with commercial alternatives.
Maddy Davis, a space policy staff member for US Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, made the comments to the Texas Space Coalition during a virtual event.
Cruz is chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and has an outsized say in space policy. As a senator from Texas, he has a parochial interest in Johnson Space Center, where the International Space Station Program is led.
“No gap”
Davis said Cruz has repeatedly reaffirmed that one of his core priorities is establishing a continuous human presence in low-Earth orbit, with “no gap” in that capability. That means he wants commercial space stations operating before the International Space Station is de-orbited, which is currently scheduled for 2030.
“He’s very painfully clear,” Davis said. “It comes up almost every time that I see him. Continuous human presence and no gap.”
To that end, Davis said she has been pressing NASA to accelerate the program to develop private space stations, known as Commercial LEO Destinations, or CLDs. In this program, NASA has previously provided funding to four different companies to develop space station concepts. The CLD program will soon enter “Phase 2,” in which these and other companies will compete for larger amounts of funding—at least hundreds of millions of dollars. One or two companies are likely to win these larger contracts. They will then build their stations with a mix of public and privately raised funding.
To kick off this competition, NASA is due to issue a long-delayed “request for proposals,” or RFP.
“Begging” for release of proposals
“Earlier today, I was having a briefing with NASA and begging for—we really needed that RFP released for CLDs like nine months ago,” Davis said. “But here we are still begging for it.”
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