The seven real astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) are now playing host to four visitors for the next two weeks after the Axiom Mission 3 crew came aboard the station earlier today.
Unlike the last two Axiom missions, all three paying members of the Axiom Mission crew are being supported by various European governments:
- Marcus Wandt, member of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) astronaut reserve (ticket paid by ESA and the Swedish National Space Agency);
- Walter Villadei, a member of the Italian air force (ticket paid by the Italian air force); and
- Alper Gezeravcı, a fighter pilot with the Turkish air force (ticket paid by the Turkish government).
At the price of $55 million per seat, I am hoping the governments and space agencies feel they are getting their money’s worth versus being part of the normal 6-month astronaut rotation.
Supposedly, the extra hands will be working on 30 experiments that the normal crew did not have time for, though I would imagine they would be the less important experiments if they would otherwise not be performed at all.
If all of this is truly important work, then I expect such demand will justify the need for commercial space stations down the line to continue the work of the ISS. However, I expect a good chuck of future space interest will come from the tourist side.
In the meantime, I just hope the toilets on board the ISS can deal with the extra passengers.
Note: So as not to give all the attention to the visitors, the current Expedition 70 crew members aboard station are:
- NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara;
- ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen;
- JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) astronaut Furukawa Satoshi; and
- Roscosmos cosmonauts Konstantin Borisov, Oleg Kononenko, and Nikolai Chub.
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