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wheat-dogg, raker of forests, master of steam6/05/2018 5:53:52 am PDT

NASA is discussing turning the ISS over to a consortium of private companies to run. This seems like a really bad idea, and the international part might get in the way of this latest Trump administration attempt to privatize all the things.

washingtonpost.com

The international nature of the station could make it tricky, though perhaps there could be an international commercial partnership with some sort of a government role, said Frank Slazer, the vice president of space systems for the Aerospace Industries Association.

“It will be very hard to turn ISS into a truly commercial outpost because of the international agreements that the United States is involved in,” he said. “It’s inherently always going to be an international construct that requires U.S. government involvement and multinational cooperation.”

[NASA administrator Jim] Bridenstine declined to name the companies that have expressed interest in managing the station, and said he was aware that companies may find it “hard to close the business case.” But he said there was still seven years to plan for the future of the station, and with the White House’s budget request “we have forced the conversation.”

Meanwhile, the Pentagon gets a fat budget and the Trumps and their appointees are sucking the Treasury dry.

Maybe we can rename the ISS the “Everybody except the USA International Space Station.”