NASA acknowledges possibility of short-term post-ISS gap

While NASA seeks to maintain an uninterrupted human presence in low Earth orbit, an agency official said a short-term gap between the International Space Station and commercial successors would not be “the end of the world.” NASA’s current approach to its future in LEO counts on supporting development of commercial space stations with the goal of having at least one such station ready to support NASA astronauts and research by 2030, when the ISS is scheduled for retirement. A key question, though, will be whether any of the several companies working on such concepts will be ready by the end of the decade. More

(Source: SpaceNews - Nov 23)