Peggy Whitson, most experienced U.S. astronaut, touts need for commercial spaceflight and private space stations

Retired NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who holds the document for the most time spent in orbit by way of an American and by way of any feminine flier because of her 3 flights to the International Space Station, perspectives her totally commercial project to the ISS this week as a key stepping stone in opposition to space tourism, private-sector orbital analysis, and commercially operated space stations. In a space-to-ground interview with CBS News, Whitson when compared the present state of commercial spaceflight to the early days of commercial aviation, when most effective the rich may manage to pay for to fly. She believes it’ll take a while for costs to drop and for non-millionaires to fly, however envisions a long term the place commercial space stations will be offering Axiom-like alternatives akin to clinical investigations and upkeep paintings, thus developing larger get admission to to space. Axiom Space, which objectives so as to add modules to the ISS over the following a number of years that can in the long run fly on their very own as a commercial outpost ahead of the present lab is retired on the finish of this decade, is the usage of private astronaut missions to construct and function a stand-alone commercial space station. Whitson, who joined Axiom as director of human spaceflight after retiring from NASA, is commanding the Ax-2 project, which objectives to realize the experience had to paintings from the similar project regulate as they construct the outpost, in addition to offering some way for critical private voters and governments with out get admission to to space to talk over with the ISS for analysis and public outreach. The Ax-2 staff, which incorporates two Saudi astronauts making their first flight, had been introduced on a SpaceX Crew Dragon pill and will perform 20 analysis tasks in quite a lot of fields ahead of undocking and returning to Earth with a splashdown off the coast of Florida on Tuesday.