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| Nasa to open International Space Station to tourists | Nasa to open International Space Station to tourists |
| (32 minutes later) | |
| Nasa is to allow tourists to visit the International Space Station from 2020. | Nasa is to allow tourists to visit the International Space Station from 2020. |
| The US space agency said it would open the orbiting station to tourism and other business ventures. | The US space agency said it would open the orbiting station to tourism and other business ventures. |
| There will be up to two short private astronaut missions per year, said Robyn Gatens, the deputy director of the ISS. | There will be up to two short private astronaut missions per year, said Robyn Gatens, the deputy director of the ISS. |
| The first component of the ISS was launched into orbit in 1998, and the station has been continually occupied since November 2000. | |
| "Nasa is opening the International Space Station to commercial opportunities and marketing these opportunities as we've never done before," chief financial officer Jeff DeWit said in New York. | "Nasa is opening the International Space Station to commercial opportunities and marketing these opportunities as we've never done before," chief financial officer Jeff DeWit said in New York. |
| Nasa announced that private astronauts would be permitted to travel to the ISS for up to 30 days. The tourists would travel on US spacecraft. | |
| It said that private commercial entities would be responsible for determining crew composition and ensuring that the private astronauts meet the medical and training requirements for spaceflight. | |
| The two companies hired by Nasa were Boeing and SpaceX, the Washington Post reported. | |
| Nasa had previously banned any commercial use of the space station and prohibited astronaut's from taking part in for-profit research. | |
| The new commercial opportunities announced on Friday are part of a trajectory towards full privatisation of the ISS. US President Donald Trump published a budget last year which called for the station to be defunded by the government by 2025. | |
| The space agency recently announced that it planned to return to the moon by 2024, taking the first woman there and the first person in decades. |