Sell the space station, explore Mars

What should NASA do with the International Space Station? Officially, it is slated to end its operational life in 2024, about the time that NASA’s Journey to Mars program is scheduled to shift into high gear with “proving ground” missions in cislunar space near the Earth’s moon. The assumption had been that the space station, conceived over 30 years ago during the Reagan administration, would be abandoned and taken out of orbit so that it would burn up harmlessly over the ocean. But NASA official Bill Hill recently suggested that the space agency and its international partners would hand off the ISS to a private company. Commercializing the space station makes sense. It’s bipartisan, for a start. President George W. Bush set into motion the commercialization of human space travel, President Obama has embraced the idea, and the transition is under way. More

(Source: USA Today - Sep 14)